This gallery contains 1 photo.
The humans are cartoonish, with unsettling ocular highlights. The man’s buckle and spurs gleam unexpectedly. The beakish woman (clad in denim?) grasps a shepherd’s crook. A bucket dangling from block and tackle drips water drawn from an artesian well. It … Continue reading
Julia Rommel uses color to great effect in works like “Volvo 240,” 2019. Credit Julia Rommel and Bureau, New York.
I ponder what exactly the relationship between professional critic and working artist is. I, of course, am neither — a nosy bystander at best. I’m aware glancingly of debates in the professional art community about who says and does what. Sounding off from my provincial redoubt feels daring, if not foolhardy.
But fools venture. It’s hard not to fall, first of all, for “Candy Jail,” the title of artist Julia Rommel’s fourth show at Bureau, a New York City gallery.
Second of all, I’m seduced by art critic Roberta Smith’s statement that Rommel “continues her brand of corrupted formalism, exploring ways to revivify Minimalist abstraction with a non-Minimalist, piecemeal sense of process.”
Say what you will, that statement has loft and verve.
This one lands smoothly: “… Ms. Rommel’s color is as beautiful as ever, especially in simpler works like ‘Volvo 240,’ where two orange squares both divided by and edged in green rivet the eyes.”
(Roberta Smith, “Spring Gallery Guide: Lower East Side,” NYTimes, 4-26-19)
(c) 2019 JMN
Harold’s welded tonnage of heroic longhorn steer stands about eight feet tall at the poll (the space between his ears). It’s from an early period — the 80’s. Harold donated the steer to his alma mater, Sul Ross State University … Continue reading
It’s a veritable laff riot when talking heads wax jocose with their colleagues while the camera rolls.
Rachel, female reporter ending her remote footage: “Back to you, Tucker. I’m gonna stay here and have fun with Curly, my new buddy.” [She pets Curly, a dog, and cuddles him. Curly beams and wags. Rachel’s story was about rescued animals.]
Tucker, anchor man: “Maybe you two should get a room.” [Glances off camera grinning.] That’s probably the most action you’ve gotten in a month! [Pauses expectantly, eyes drifting to his view of Rachel. Two seconds of dead air…] Well, I crack myself up, if no one else. [Fade-out.]
(YouTube)
(c) 2019 JMN
A scene from Roma, the Oscar-winning Mexican film whose subtitles in Castilian-Spanish, French and English have come in for widespread criticism. Photograph: Netflix.
I like learning that the average reading speed for adult viewers of subtitled movies is 15 to 17 characters a second, that 37-42 characters fit on a line, and the number of lines is limited to two.
A sad fact, however, is inherent to the argument that subtitlists should get more respect: It was ever so. If you are reduced to pointing out that what you do is as important as what other people do, you’re already an afterthought and confirming your status. Linguists are relegated to the back bench, if they have a seat at all, and there’s no change in sight from my corner.
… Too many film-makers look on subtitling as an afterthought… As [David Buchanan, a freelance translator] points out, “Subtitles are the conduit allowing you to communicate your film’s ideas around the globe. Bad subtitles can ruin millions of dollars’ worth of hard work. A film-maker wouldn’t outsource their colour correction or audio mix and just think: ‘I’ll leave them to it, I’m sure it’ll be fine.’ They would want to see it, hear it, get a second opinion, make sure everybody is on the same page. It should be the same with subtitles.”
(Anne Billson, “Say what? Why film translators are in a war of words over subtitles,” The Guardian, 4-25-19)
(c) 2019 JMN
This painting has some slight appeal for me. Maybe it’s better called a sketch, and its appeal is in its very sketchiness. It’s flat; there’s no hint of color perspective. The figures are suggested crudely. The paint is slathered on … Continue reading
When I re-launched this blog a year ago, my father had died. I imagined one use for the blog as being an archive for images of some of his art works. That particular thrust of the blog faltered. Lately, with … Continue reading
Gespenst eines Genies (Ghost of a Genius), 1922, by Paul Klee. Photograph: Archivart/Alamy.
I see almost daily in the work of fellow bloggers luminous evidence of the play of eye and hand across a surface with some object — pen, crayon, brush, mouse — that leaves expressive marks. Laura Cumming, art critic for The Guardian, says in her well illustrated essay that the impulse to draw is deeply ingrained in humans.
To draw is to see, to learn, to understand. It is thought on the page; pure discovery, in John Berger’s phrase. It may describe the story of its own making, the trials and errors and corrections, the line hurtling or slowing, hesitant or incisive, perhaps finally triumphant. It gets to the page live and direct, brain to nib or sharpened tip, without the encumbrances of any other media.
…
A sketchbook… is a world of infinite pardon where you can experiment for ever. Nulla dies sine linea – no day without a line, so says Pliny.
(Laura Cumming, “Make your mark: the enduring joy of drawing,” The Guardian, 4-21-19)
(c) 2019 JMN
Thank you, Maeve Higgins. I’m always glad for the rare journalist who doesn’t assume her reader is privy to novel slang. A term I knew only from sailing has headlined several unread articles recently. I assumed it had to do with haunting.
Ghosting, in modern dating parlance, is when your beloved vanishes without explanation, having taken what he or she needed. Rhiana Gunn-Wright, whose expertise helped shape the Green New Deal, says that humans are ghosting the planet. The joke is a perfect analogy: We’re in this fabulous life-giving relationship with Earth, this ideal planet, but we’re messing her around. We’re using her and we’re not answering her calls, and planning on leaving her for a cooler planet as soon as we figure out how.
(Maeve Higgins, “Life on Mars Should Not Look This Appealing,” NYTimes, 4-21-19)
(c) 2019 JMN
EthicalDative 
“Splendidly Cagey”
Work by Klee always gives me a boost. I also enjoy the critic’s sprightly accounting of it, which I excerpt here.
Paul Klee’s “Signs in the Field,” from 1935, at David Zwirner. Credit Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York, via David Zwirner.
Klee’s “The Singer L. as Fiordiligi,” from 1923, at David Tunick. Credit Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York, via David Tunick.
“A storm is blowing from Paradise,” wrote [Walter] Benjamin. “It has got caught in his wings with such violence the angel can no longer close them.” (Credit: The Israel Museum, Jerusalem).
(Jason Farago, “Tefaf Brings Masterpieces (and Tulips) to the Armory,” NYTimes, 5-2-19; links to his article “How Klee’s ‘angel of history’ took flight,” BBC Culture, 4-6-16)
(c) 2019 JMN