by Marty Coleman | Jan 20, 2013 | Art, Artists I Love, Robert Irwin |
Transfixed
I first came across Robert Irwin while I was visiting Minneapolis for an art conference when I was in my 20s. I took some time off and went to the Walker Art Center, one of the best museums in North America that I had heard about for many years. This is what I saw.
Robert Irwin – Untitled – 1968-69
If it’s hard for you to figure out what it is you are looking at, it’s on purpose. It was slightly less hard in person and that is what made it so profound for me. I had come across that incredible creative moment when something skews your understanding of space, of what is real, of what it is you are actually seeing.
What you are looking at is a convex plexiglass disk that is out from the wall. It is painted and lit so that it looks as if it is hovering in space. Then it disappears and is flat tones on a wall. The it comes back and is pushing out towards you with power. It was amazing to just stand there and get lost in it’s visual everythingness.
Shortly thereafter I learned of a biography written about Irwin and found it.
The book told the story of his creative art journey from the disk you see above through his work as a master within the ‘Light and Space’ movement in art. The work in the book was incredible and I was hooked. The book is now one of my treasured possessions because it contains the autographs of both the author and Mr. Irwin. I will return to the story of the book after showing you some of his work.
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Robert Irwin – Untitled – 1968
Robert Irwin – Untitled – Installation view
Here’s another example of that same mysterious, disorienting visual balancing act Irwin does between dimension and flatness, solidity and ethereality.
Robert Irwin – Old Post Office, Washington D.C.
Irwin started to move out from the gallery and put work in larger, less traditional art spaces. These panels hang in the middle of the atrium and both stand out and disappear depending on your location and the light at the time.
Robert Irwin – Violet Running Form
This is a very playful piece. It’s in a beautiful stand of Eucalyptus trees on the UC San Diego campus. It is a blue chain link fence that starts at a height twice as high as the normal person. Obviously it plays off the idea of utility but it also plays with the light that come into the grove and one’s perception of the color that is normally there in the trees, leaves and air.
I had the pleasure of coming across this art piece unaware when I took Caitlin to visit UCSD as a possible college location. I had seen the photos of it many years before in the book but completely forgot that it was on campus. We just happened to walk through the Eucalyptus grove and there it was. It really did change the beauty of the space in wonderful ways.
Robert Irwin – 1°2°3°4° – 1997
Robert Irwin – 1°2°3°4° – 1997
Irwin loves to isolate and divide while keeping something unified. It’s his way of saying look at all of this and look at just this at the same time. I love that about his work.
Robert Irwin – Who’s Afraid of Red Yellow Blue – 2006
Later in his career he moved into using other elements to define space and light. Here he is using solid panels that appear light and heavy at the same time. The top ones levitate but also are dangerous in their percieved weight. Where do you stand, what do you think about walking in and around the space? The answers say more about you than the art.
Robert Irwin – Getty Gardens
Robert Irwin – Getty Gardens
Irwin took on a huge commission when he agreed to design the gardens surrounding the new Getty Museum in the Santa Monica Hills overlooking Los Angeles. As you can see, he was able to use completely non-art world material and create an amazing visual space that still insists on confronting your understanding of space and light in a way that both illuminates and enriches.
In the end, for all the intellectual and art-bound theories and philosophies I might find in Irwin’s work, in the end I am left with a true and unadulterated joy in the sensations of the world around us. Irwin is able to present us with a visual world that makes us think and makes us smile. How cool is that? I can think of no greater art achievement one can really hope to make.
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The Story of the Book
Ok, back to the book. In 1976 I continued my education at University of California, Santa Barbara. While I was there I had a girlfriend for a while. Here is a picture of her a few years later visiting my then wife and me in San Jose.
While Toni was visiting was us I showed her the book about Robert Irwin. She laughed and looked at us funny and said, “You know that Lawrence, the author, is my brother, right?” No, I did not know that. Yes, I knew her last name and yes I saw his last name on the cover, I just never made the connection. So, I sent the book back with her to LA where she lived so she could hunt down her brother and get him to autograph it for me. She sent it back to me a few months later with inscription you see below.
You may have noticed that Robert Irwin also signed it. Here’s how that came down. I had attended San Jose State University as a graduate student pursuing my MFA. A year after I graduated I heard he was coming to school to give a guest lecture. I was pretty psyched, and if possible, meet him and have him sign my book. When the day finally arrived I had a dilemma. I was not able to go due to my work schedule at the restaurant where I worked. But, I could go to the very beginning of the lecture and perhaps meet him beforehand if I timed it right.
I was on the second story of the student union building standing looking over the edge into the large central atrium area, waiting for him to arrive for the lecture from the Art Department. When he came in he was surrounded by at least a dozen or more people, including the chairman of the department and many professors, including a number who had been my advisors. I was bummed about the crowd, figuring I would not get a chance right them to meet him. I saw them disappear under the walkway I was on to come up the stairs.
Robert Irwin
When they arrived at the top of the stairs they were all there except Mr. Irwin. I immediately asked the Chairman where he was and he said he had stayed downstairs to find a bathroom. That was all I needed to hear. I rushed down the stairs and found him walking down a hallway, indeed looking for a bathroom. I introduced myself, directed him to the bathroom and went in with him. We stood at side by side urinals taking a leak and talking. Luckily for me we both had to go really bad so it lasted a long time. I was able to to tell him of my admiration for his work, and the book, explaining about knowing Lawrence’s sister. I told him my status as a recent MFA grad, my working 3 jobs, including 2 part time teaching gigs at community colleges. He was incredibly gracious, especially considering we were peeing together.
Photograph: Graeme Robertson for the Guardian
When we were done we continued to talk and I asked him if he would autograph the book, which he did. He also gave me encouraging advice about how to deal with the first few years out of graduate school, how to work through hard things and keep creating worthy art at the same time. I then led him back up to the auditorium and to the front of the audience so he could give his lecture. I meanwhile skeedaddled to the restaurant to work my shift. I didn’t hear the lecture but I gained more than I had hoped!
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If you are interested in learning more about Robert Irwin, you can check out these resources. There is a huge body of work he has done that will amaze you.
Ace Gallery
Pacific Standard Time project- Getty.org
Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego
Robert Irwin – Light and Space – Video
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Winter/Spring 2015
Summer 2014
Winter 2012/2013
Winter 2011/2012
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by Marty Coleman | Jan 11, 2013 | Art, Robert Ingersoll |
Biting Critique
Have you ever been in a critique? I went to Cranbrook Academy of Art for graduate school back in the early 80s. I was in the printmaking department and once a week we would have critiques with the entire group (18 students). They were brutal and if I had been illustrating what it was really like in this drawing she would not just have her hand and foot gone but her head as well. How bad was it? I was denied admission for a second and final year because my work wasn’t good enough in my professor’s eyes. We had moved 2,000 miles across the country for me to go to school there and a year later I was out and we had to go back to California. I started over and eventually got my graduate degree, an MFA, from San Jose State University. But make no mistake, I was chewed up and spit out and it wasn’t fun.
Reaping
But, in truth, it was nature at it’s best. That means it was not a punishment for me and those who stayed for the second year didn’t get a reward. We all got consequences. I reaped the consequences of artistic and personal immaturities and arrogances on my part. I reaped the consequences of unhelpful habits on my part. I reaped the consequences of personality conflicts with a professor. I reaped the consequences of a system that I thought then, and I think now, had some serious flaws in it. But the totality of that experience had very little to do with rewards granted and punishments imposed in an arbitrary way. It had everything to do with cause and effect, action and reaction, truth and consequence.
What about you? Do you think you deserve to be punished or rewarded for something you have done? Or can you take the more neutral, less morally condemning view, that you are merely suffering the consequences?
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Drawing by Marty Coleman, who had to find a picture of a lion eating something to get it right.
Quote by Robert G. Ingersoll, 1833-1899, American orator and political leader. He is a forgotten gem of the golden age of American speech making. He is well worth investigating.
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Trivia of the Day
If a saint is depicted with three balls, who is he?
Answer will be at the next posting.
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by Marty Coleman | Jan 7, 2013 | Art, Artists I Love, Veruschka
When I was a young boy, around 13 years old, I would sneak a look at my father’s Playboy Magazines. I was no different than any other boy when it came to what excited me. Then again I was different. The famous 60s supermodel, Veruschka, showed me that with these photos from Playboy that I first saw when I was perhaps 16.
Veruschka – Playboy Magazine, 1971
Seeing a naked woman in art and photography was not that big a deal to me, having grown up around the nude in artworks of all types in my grandparent’s and parent’s homes. But this was not a naked woman, this was a woman transformed into something other than herself while at the same time expressing an even greater sense of who she was. It was a revelation.
Veruschka as a Peacock
Veruschka in Pink
In that and other pictorials she also became men, Marilyn Monroe, unzipped herself and transformed from animal to vegetable among other things. No other woman transfixed my imagination as a youth like she did. All the rest came and went, but Veruschka stayed in my mind as a woman apart. Not a model only, not a muse only, but an artist.
Verushka as a Man
Veruschka the Redneck
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Veruschka started out as Vera Lehndorff but was unsuccessful as a model under that name and so reinvented herself as the mysterious Russian, Veruschka. She actually was born in Prussia (Poland) before WWII and was a very tall and gawky 6’1″ by the time she was 14 years old. She was teased and made fun of for her looks and skinny angularity. She stopped growing at 6’4″. She, along with Twiggy and Jean Shrimpton, were the first supermodels, dominating the covers and editorials of Vogue and every other fashion magazine of the 60s and early 70s.
Veruschka – Vogue Cover
Veruschka – Life Magazine Cover, 1967
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One of the most amazing things about Veruschka was that she did almost all the creative work on her fashion shoots. She did her own hair and makeup, as well as have creative control over the editorial scheme of the shoots in many cases. If you look close at her early fashion images you can see the roots of her later artwork.
Veruschka – Early body painting work
Notice the ‘Flower Power’ body painting work from the late 60s.
Veruschka in Brown
Veruschka in Green
Notice how she creates a visual image in which she completely blends in to her background. It’s a life long obsession to blend into the background that you will see reach it’s apex in her artwork.
Cheetah and Veruschka
Early on in her modeling career she worked to incorporate herself as animal into her shoots.
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Fast forward to the 1980s and I find a book by Vera Lehndorff called ‘Veruschka | Trans-Figurations’. It documents a 16 year collaborative art project between herself and the photographer Holgar Trulsch. During those 16 years Veruschka painting herself to match various surroundings, from oxidized metal in abandon factories to boulders to weathered wood to the sky itself. Finding the book was like finding a dear friend after many years and seeing the amazing things she had done with her life. It’s one of my most treasured books because it is that perfect combination of visual beauty, conceptual brilliance, individual creative drive and surprise that I love.
Here are some examples from that book.
Veruschka in the Forest
Veruschka Among Boulders
Veruschka and Electrical Box
Veruschka and Tree
Veruschka and Steel Pillar
Veruschka and Linen Closet
Veruschka and Window
Veruschka and Sky
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If you are thinking you’ve seen this sort of thing done many times before, you are right. Body painting has become a big thing over the past 2 decades in art and media culture around the world. You can see it among celebrities, in sports and in fine art. There are whole groups dedicated to it now with annual conferences and events. Take a look below to see some of the influence Veruschka has had.
Demi Moore
Sports Illustrated Body Paint book
Gotye video still – Somebody That I Used To Know – Emma Hack, artist
And finally here are some contemporary fine artists at work using the technique Veruschka developed.
Bookcase – Desiree Palmen
Bus Stop – Desiree Palmen
Qui Zhijie – tattoo 2
If you are interested in learning more about Veruschka or the evolution of the use of the body as a canvas start in google images and just type in Veruschka body painting and you will find plenty to investigate. Search under Qui Zhijie and Desiree Palmen to find out more about their art.
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by Marty Coleman | Dec 16, 2012 | Albrecht Durer, Art, Artists I Love |
I first got to know the work of Albrecht Durer, who was a Northern Renaissance artist, when I took an advanced seminar course on printmaking at the Boston Museum of Fine Art while I was attending Brandeis University. I found his work harder to understand than the other two artists we studied, Rembrandt and Goya, but that didn’t make me appreciate his genius any less. And a genius he was. Take a look at his self-portrait when he was a very young teenager.
Albrecht Durer – Self-portrait at age 13 – 1484
He was raised to be a goldsmith like his father but was such a talent that he apprenticed the largest printmaking shop in the area instead. He traveled around Germany after that and eventually made his way to Italy where he drew some of the first pure landscapes in the history of Western Art.
Albrecht Durer – ‘The Great Piece of Turf’ – Watercolor, Pen & Ink – 1503
He was one of the first in Northern Europe to systematically investigate anatomy in detail, drawing hundreds of figures and diagrams to help himself understand the nature of the human body.
Albrecht Durer – Nude Self Portrait – Pen & Ink – 1503-1505
Albrecht Durer – Figure of a Woman Shown in Motion – 1528
Albrecht Durer – Studies on the Proportions of the Female Body – Woodcut – 1528
Albrecht Durer – Adam and Eve – 1507
His greatest fame though came from his printmaking. By his mid-2os he was famous throughout Europe for his incredible engravings and woodcuts. The engravings are what I studied at the Museum. They are deeply symbolic and allegorical in many cases.
Albrecht Durer – Melancholia – engraving – 1507
Albrecht Durer – Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse – Woodcut – 1498
Albrecht Durer – Knight, Death and the Devil – Engraving – 1513
His detail and composition are always expert of course but it is his willingness to expose deep truths and fears of life that always grabs me the most.
Finally, if you ever look at artwork involving praying hands, such at the huge bronze sculpture of praying hands here in Tulsa, here you are seeing the foundational drawing that they all are rooted in. Probably his most famous work to the non art oriented public. Interesting enough, it is not titled ‘Praying Hands’.
Albrecht Durer – Hands of an Apostle – Drawing – 1508
Durer is well worth investigating, not just the images but his story as well. You can read about him at Wikipedia as a start of course. And the images here can be found at WikiPaintings.org, a great resource.
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Winter 2011/2012
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by Marty Coleman | Dec 1, 2012 | Art, Artists I Love, Roger Brown |
Hey Everyone, it’s wintertime again and that means I am going to restart my ‘Artist’s I Love’ Series. I will do an artist each weekend or so for a while. Let me know if you have a favorite artist, it might jog my memory and I’ll want to include them too!
If you want to see last year’s series, check it out under ‘Artist’s I Love‘.
Roger Brown Exhibition – 1981 – Catalog cover
First up for this year is Roger Brown. I first saw his work while I was a student in Graduate School at San Jose State University. I don’t remember the exact circumstances but I saw a show of his work and it blew me away. He combines humor, social commentary, great painting (and other media) techniques, fantastic color and spot on compositions. He is inventive, creative, always moving forward in exploring the possibilities of art.
I got this catalog from a Roger Brown exhibition that I did NOT attend. I was at a museum that had a few pieces of his and saw this catalog in the museum bookstore and had to have it. It’s been opened a LOT since I got it 30+ years ago, as you can tell by what shape it is in. He’s been one of my favorite artists ever since.
The Entry of Christ into Chicago in 1976 – Roger Brown
This image might be his most famous piece and it’s indicative of his imagery, high contrast and stylized into flattened patterns with repetitive elements. The subject matter is both contemporary and historical, which is also typical of many of his images. But there is a decided anti-religious feel to the piece, as if it is a tacky city-sponsored event.
‘Talk Show’ – Roger Brown
He frequently uses suburban scenes, most often with the banality of that world appearing to be the message. At the same time he uses it so much that I have always go the feeling that he knows and actually has affection for that world, even while leveling a sort of frustrated critique on it.
‘Devil’s Surprise’ – Roger Brown
‘Jim and Tammy Show’ – Roger Brown
As is obvious, he has no love lost for organized religion in this painting. The surprise that the churchgoers are the ones in hell probably has a lot to do with his being from the south and having been raised with that baptist fundamentalism all around him. His tacky, paperdoll cut out view of Jim and Tammy Bakker, preachers who fell from grace in the 90s, also give that message.
‘Post Modern Res Erection’ – Roger Brown
He has also played around (pun intended) with making light of America’s sexual obsessions, which isn’t unrelated to our religious ones.
‘Family Tree Mourning’ – Roger Brown
His social commentary wasn’t restricted to just two of the taboo dinner subjects, religion and sex, he dealt with the third as well, politics. Here he connects all our wars up until that time into a gigantic national family tree. He obviously felt that war had come out of and had overwhelmed the goodness of our founding.
He did a number of fine art prints and in this case made sure the viewer knew it was a print by saying so right on it. I like that cheekiness.
‘Twin Towers’ – Roger Brown – 1977
Brown delved into 3D work in his later career while not actually straying very far from his thematic and visual focus. This is obviously done much closer to the construction of the World Trade Center than it’s destruction, but it has a very moving feel to it, with the emphasis on the silhouettes in each window busy doing their work.
Here are just a few more I think are of interest.
‘Crater’ – Roger Brown
“City Expanding’ – Roger Brown
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If you like his work you can read more about him at:
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by Marty Coleman | Oct 26, 2012 | Art, How To Draw A Napkin - 2012 |
Finally Step 10!
Step 10a-10d: See 1a-1d
Step 10e: Get divorced after 20 years of marriage.
Step 10f: Start dating woman from church who is also getting divorced.
Step 10g: Stop dating woman from church and introduce her to guy in Sunday School.
Step 10h: Have woman from church say she can’t ever talk to me again because her new boyfriend I introduced her to is jealous.
Step 10i: Go internet dating.
Step 10j: Have some wonderful girlfriends who aren’t quite the right fit.
Step 10k: Meet woman on match.com, think she is cool and date her for 2 years, with a break up in there somewhere.
Step 10l: Meet woman from match.com’s daughter and think she is cool.
Step 10m: Ask woman from match.com to marry me.
Step: 10n: Get married to woman from match.com
Step 10o: Find out woman from match.com’s name is Linda.
Step 10p: Live happily ever after.
This is a great place to stop for a while. I will pick it back up later, maybe doing it once a week or so.
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Concept, drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman, who thought internet dating was fun.
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Fact of the day
Approximately 1/3 of marriages in the US are step-family involved remarriages for one or both partners.
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by Marty Coleman | Oct 25, 2012 | Art, How To Draw A Napkin - 2012 |
It sounds worse than it was, but it was bad.
Steps 9a-9d: Repeat 1a-1d
Step 9e: Watch as wife drifts away from relationship.
Step 9f: Watch as company where I have dream job goes bankrupt.
Step 9g: Become unemployed.
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Concept, drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman, who didn’t actually almost drown himself in a big reusable jelly jar glass.
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Fact of the day
The average American spends 4 years at a job. In Portugal the average is 12.5 years.
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by Marty Coleman | Oct 24, 2012 | Art, How To Draw A Napkin - 2012 |
Take a road trip with me across the country!
Steps 8a-8d: See 1a-1d
Step 8e: Give up looking for a college teaching job after 8 unsuccessful years.
Step 8f: Retrain yourself in computer graphics, using your family’s and friend’s computers during the day while they are at work.
Step 8g: Land a dream job in Tulsa, Oklahoma after you promise the company you will use your own computer as your work computer.
Step 8h: Drive sight unseen 1,692 miles across the country with your wife and kids to start a new life.
Step 8i: Start at entry level pay that is less than you made working four part-time jobs back in California.
Step 8j: Work hard and get promoted until 18 months later you are the Art Director and Producer at an educational software company.
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Concept, Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman, who doesn’t actually have a cowboy hat but wants one.
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Fact of the Day
Oklahoma originally was going to be 2 states but the Republican controlled congress did not want 4 Democratic senators added to their ranks. They made the two potential states into one so that only 2 would be appointed. Oklahoma was admitted to the union in 1907.
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by Marty Coleman | Oct 23, 2012 | Art, How To Draw A Napkin - 2012 |
Yes, I am trying to draw you in.
Steps 7a-7d: see 1a-1d
Step 7e: Get a part time job teaching drawing at a community college.
Step 7f: Get another part time job doing the same thing at a different community college.
Step 7g: Get a third job doing the same thing at yet another community college.
Step 7h: Keep your job working in a restaurant, creating art and raising your family.
Step 7i: Apply for full-time teaching jobs at colleges and universities all around the country.
Step 7j: Repeat steps 7e-7i for 9 years.
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Concept, drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman
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Trivia of the day
The teaching job I applied for that had the most applications was at the University of Virginia. There were 0ver 600 applications for one Assistant Professor position.
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by Marty Coleman | Oct 22, 2012 | Art, How To Draw A Napkin - 2012 |
It’s a new week and we are graduating to step six!
Step 6a-6d: See steps 1a-1d.
Step 6e: Move 515 miles to first college out of high school. Miss first semester because of being blown up.
Step 6f: Move 919 miles to second college because first college closes down. Lose girlfriend.
Step 6g: Move 3,072 miles to third college because you can’t afford the second college. Get Religion.
Step 6h: Graduate from 3rd college. Get married, have kids.
Step 6i: Move 2,399 miles to go to graduate school. Have car crash that should have been an omen.
Step 6j: Move 2,431 miles to second graduate school because you get kicked out of first graduate school for being a crappy artist.
Step 6k: Graduate from Graduate school. Start looking for jobs.
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Concept, drawings and commentary by Marty Coleman, who wasn’t really as crappy an artist as the professor said, but was still pretty bad.
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Fact of the day
There are over 2,700 colleges and universities in the US as of 2009. My immediate family has gone to 12 of them and graduated from 5 (so far).
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