insane single cylinder knucklehead

Spotted at the epic Mooneyes show in Yokohama by the guys over at Dice Magazine

In case you dont know, it is supposed to be a Vtwin..... Japan is doing it

FeEeEeLiNgG GoOoOoD

cant wait to install the stuff Ive been working on in the project space at school on Sunday... We will see what happens but Im stoked

I need to kill the parts of me that want to be Rachel Harrison   Jessica Stockholder  and Phyllida Barlow 


 ...sounds like a gender identity crisis

Tamara Zahaykevich

 Link

 Found her on Anaba  which is Martin Bromirski's blog (I posted his work a month or so ago)  and its a great little corner of the internet. 

Anyway, Tamara makes some pretty cool little constructions with traditional and not traditional materials.  The results are a kind of weird accumulation of stuff.  Some are oddly beautiful some are ugly, they are all quirky and sometimes barely stay together. 

And I guess

I should show off my shit... it keeps me motivated in a lot of things.

It is a 1974 Honda CB360 with a kickstart only CJ360 engine.  71 honda xl250 front rim, I made a lot of the parts for this guy.
Some pictures from building it can be seen on my other blog The Dirty Old Town 

Another version

Here is a picture of another version of that red triumph I posted a while back.... crazy weird sissy bar.

Found it in this awesome set on Flickr....

Studio Visit with Glenn Goldberg

I forgot my camera and have these terrible cell phone shots... thats Glenn standing there in front of the painting with the half circle.
Link to some of his older work
Glenn is a great guy and a great artist, a real old soul.  He was a teacher at the Chautauqua Art Institute while I was there last summer.   His studio is in Bushwick and he invited me and Rory to come out sometime.  We finally made it out there last Tuesday.
We hung out for a while at first sitting and talking, but Glenn needed to keep busy so he took the big canvas with the half circle down, set it across 2 chairs and started to cover it in dots with a white-out pen. 
Glenn has a distinct view on art, a little old school, a little spiritual, all hard work.   He is an old-school new yorker really.  Raised in the Bronx and all that jazz.   The way he talks about his work is very interesting.  For example after laying down several hundred dots as we sat there he pauses and says "Look at that, that is good work.  Its not good art yet, but it is good work."  I have never really heard anyone talk about what they make in that way before.  It is like as long as you work hard, make good work, the good art will follow.  He says you need to figure out what you want to make, what kind of work you want to do.  Not necessarily "abstract painting" or "sculpture"  but almost more literal than that.  How do you want to physically spend your time?  What kind of motions do you want to go through?  How do you want to engage with the process of making? Is it a fast process?  Is it slow and meditative?
We talked about being a studio rat, and digging deeper and getting more and more consumed by your work.  A lot of what we talked about relates to something Rachael told me when I was bugging her in her studio last week.  It really stuck with me, she said something like if you are totally into what you are doing, always working hard at an idea, even if it is the dumbest idea ever, and you have your own personal logic and sense of direction, no one can touch you. 
It just makes sense, because I have been thinking a lot lately about making work that actually matters to me, getting rid of all the people in my work who I like but do not matter (painting people out as Phillip Guston said) taking a position, developing a personal logic for how to make work and pursue an idea.  It basically all boils down to JUST DO IT.  Let the work take over, direct it but be consumed. 
Later Glenn bought us dinner and showed us around the new building at Cooper Union, where he teaches a class.  It was like being in the Death Star.  He has a show coming up in New York in January at some gallery uptown.  Ill put it on my blog when I find out when and where exactly.  Id recommend going to it to anyone.  His work is very unique and interesting, almost has an outsider feel to it, but it is very idiosyncratic and in conversation with a lot of art history. 

Joe Reihsen

Trying to get a feel for the scene in LA.   These are some great, strange paintings.  Acrylic and Oil, fractured space, atmospheric space, furniture for paintings.  looks like he uses an air brush too. kind of mysterious looking. 
Joe Reihsen

Chris Lux

seems pretty interesting.... I dont know what his objects are made of, but they look pretty non archival, and really are rather ugly.
Chris Lux

Angel Unchained

Joshua Neustein, Sergej Jensen, N.Dash

Untitled Gallery

I saw Sergej Jensen's show at PS1 last spring... I thought it was just smart.  Interesting to try to talk about too.  Like I guess it's in the realm of painting because he is definitely in conversation with abstraction.  But there is no paint to be found... its really pretty cool.  And like I said about Maria Walker in an earlier post, the image almost seems accidental sometimes, or even inconsequential in this case. So what kind of a gesture is that? Interesting... My only criticism is how similar all 3 artist's work is... which is of course why they are grouped together, but I could almost ascribe it all to one of them.  Which bugs me because I think that working this way makes it really easy to come up with a pleasing final product.

Asger Jorn

the way out of abstract expressionism

Just to keep up

with the flurry of posting today.... here is one ill be thinking about for a while.  Lifted it from a youtube video, its a panhead in Jason Jessee's warehouse.

Russell Maltz

Forgot about this guy... I like stacks and piles too, for their narrative qualities.  I think it is interesting how he takes kinds of images of detritus or everyday/ construction subject matter and formalizes it in some way; organizes it, arranges it.  Maybe disrupts it in a way?

Russell Maltz

Haim Steinbach

Julie told me to look at Haim, I actually just came across his work somewhere, I forget what I was reading....  seems to be about revealing some identity through creating relationships of objects.  Or creating some identity by presenting these strange groups of objects... Also building formal relationships.

Haim's website 

Daniel Buren

Seems pretty interesting, although his website is really wacky
Daniel Buren

Isa Genzken

Minimalism collides with the body collides with painting and sculpture in the work of Isa Genzken
David Zwirner 

Gahd Dayum!!!

eye like it

Phyllida Barlow

Oh yea, I also LOVE this woman, all 67 years of her....
LINK

Things have gotten really vertical

and fucking Rachel Harrison has found her way into my studio and I can't get her the fuck out!   It is a little frustrating!

So it has been an ok week,  I never feel as busy as I want to be though.   Ill just put up some pictures of work...  The tall stretchers are my next project, stemmed from the smaller ones I made a while back, as well as Chris Martin's painting on stilts that was at The Corcoran, that was taken down by the time I got down there....  I really like the form, it invokes a protest sign, a WWF fan sign, someone mentioned african rituals, they are also paintings personified in a way, I mean they literally have legs....  so yea, honestly they bore the shit out of me right now as they are, so Ill be working on them for a while and they will eventually go in the project space when my time comes I think.

Last Friday, I went to the city for class to do studio visits.  I thought it was really good even though we didn't get to spend a lot of time with the artists.  It was more time than Ive ever spent in a 'professional's' studio so I can't complain that much.  I did have a lot of questions for Allison though, that I didn't get to ask....

After that I met up with some more friends and went to Bartolami Gallery for a Jonathan Meese performance.
Link
It was funny, I was drunk from a show that had free vodka in water jugs, it was entertaining and ridiculous, people got mad, I'm not sure if it is a sustainable idea but what the hell Im glad I went, and I even got my hands on his devil puppet and gave him a hug afterwards.

Goals for this week:  Keep fucking shit up, bring work to be shown at Art House to Art House, read "Ecce Homo" by Isabelle Graw in this months art forum....

this is too long.

Lauren Luloff

paints on bed sheets and kills it. 
http://tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/01/visiting-artists-lauren-luloff/
Lauren's Blog

Actually

I lied about no pictures. here is a picture of a panhead.  thank you Japan.  time for a meeting of the minds of kevin.  I love this shit so its going in my blog, when im not thinking about art im thinking about old motorcycles.

Studio Journal

Yea.  Had a crit with Catherine Murphy today that went well.  She told me to think more about scale (go bigger) and try to make pieces that are more memorable... something I never really thought of before.  Or I never really though of that way before.  She is a little old school i think, but very smart and I take her opinion seriously.  She told me to be more ambitious, tackle more, but dont make too big of a mess.  I suppose she means be ambitious and concise, dont let too much cloud my head, but dont lose sight of some of the ideas I have.  She said that painting is a magic trick and sculpture is not, and the biggest challenge for me is how can I make painting both sculptural and a magic trick.  We discussed how the great secret to art history is how art works negotiate time.  It was a good crit.  Everyone usually tells me I need to self edit more.  I agree, but at the same time I have an idea of the more memorable pieces (if thats what its about) and also what the more successful pieces are in my eyes and that usually goes along with what everyone who comes in says isnt working.  But I like to show everything Ive made regardless.  With all that being said, i dont agree with her wholeheartedly about a few things.  I think the idea of an artwork being successful but not memorable is an interesting idea and if the goal is to make something memorable, making it bigger is the easy way to do it.  although I can agree with her that scale is limiting me to a certain extent right now.  I think she was into the work and she brought up a few ideas that she said she herself would be thinking about for the rest of the day at least. 

Goals for this week are to start brainstorming ideas for the project space, and read a few articles.  I want to start making some moves on some new pieces too.

Im meeting tomorrow with the little study/ crit/ discussion group that me and a few friends put together.  We are talking about our most favorite artwork of all time and why we like it and how it has affected us and our work.  should be fun. 

Trying to go to NYC on Thursday to see the Joanne Greenbaum, Micheal Krebber, and Trudy Benson.
Talked to Jim today and Im stoked for the studio visits on friday. 

no pictures, sorry

DAKOTA

DAKOTA try to keep up

Maria Walker

I dig her work a lot, and Im very impressed that she has a decent looking wordpress based website
Maria Walker 

I really like the quirkiness of her work.  The rawness mixed with careful consideration, or maybe a confusion between the two?  I like how they address the viewer; they interact, or react to the wall and some to the space they are in, while holding their ground as paintings.  They arent beautiful but I feel like they are somehow about beauty, maybe a hard fought, beat up kind of beauty.  It is really interesting how the painting takes on the form while the image takes on a formlessness and at times even seems incidental.  This makes for an interesting play between support and image;  which one is more consequential here?  She gives a whole new meaning to the term "handmade stretcher bar" that she uses to describer her older supports.  I imagine them being made with hand tools in some basement by a 10 year old or something, or totally being brought together by accident.  If that makes any sense.  The backs of the paintings are just as considered as the front in some cases, enforcing their objectness.  She comes from Elsworth Kelly in the way that the wall is the canvas before the canvas is.  Having trouble pinning her down with anyone else right now.

Martin Bromirski

strange little paintings.... link to art blog art blog:
Martin Bromirski

Thought I was ahead with this

but Im actually behind.  So to start to catch up....
I like this guy's work.  Found him while looking at the faculty at Queens College I think.
Jim Lee
Its inspiring, some of the forms he finds, as well as the materials he uses... Its tough though work like this can end up being so much about a particular aesthetic, and Im trying to figure out if that is ok.  I think its kind of bad because it is easy to make worn out old stuff look good when its hung on a wall... or I think so at least. 

So I have some pictures of recent stuff...  A few things are done, but some of it is still moving around.  It feels like more and more work gets broken down and reassembled into other work.

First up is a sculpture for the Chance show, part of a collaboration with Rory Rosenberg all about Chance the white American Bulldog from Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey: 

 The rock was replaced with a porcelain dog sculpture I got at an antique store.

I finished 3 paintings recently:

 Random stuff moving around:

 The bent cardboard was like a mini Richard Serra, so I thought it would be dumb to have little people looking at it.

Saw the Blinky Palermo show at The Hessel Museum and CCS Galleries at Bard College.  It was a really good show, I can complain about the lighting because it was all natural and very dim, but I also dont have the best eyesight to begin with.  Ill definitely be thinking about this show for a while. 

Trying to get to the city soon to see some work, I really want to see the Joanne Greenbaum show at D'Amelio Terras and the Michael Krebber show at Green Naftali  (whose site is not liked by my computer so I cant get a link) 

I have been looking at grad schools on the US News ranked list, which I dont really trust because I think its based a lot on how much money the school has and how many kids leave with jobs, but it is a good way to find "top schools" and see the faculty at them.  I think Im going to wait to go to grad school though, probably a year.  I just want to see how it is to make work outside of school for a while, and free myself for a little bit, travel, hopefully see the country.

Anyway so that was a lot.  My goals for this week are to finish some work for my crit in painting class on tuesday, finish a sculpture for crit on wednesday and thats pretty much it.  I might try to apply for a few shows that are coming up too, even though Im broke.

Im Thinking...

about forced confrontation....

Marc Handleman Tomorrow's Forcast: Strikingly Clear

Ann Craven White Cat on Blue

Raoul De Keyser  Falling Balls

I was talking to a friend about Marc Handleman and Ann Craven.  After saying Im not to sure how similar their work is to each other my friend said it is all about the confrontation.  How on earth are kittens and sunsets confrontational you say?  That is the beauty of it....  De Keyser makes me think the same thing, because his paintings are so stark and unassertive that they become just the opposite....

Not much

Not much to report... Ill try to get some pictures of the studio.  Ive been sick in bed for 2 days after going to canada for the weekend so Im a little behind.  Check out the side link though to look at my newly updated CV.
Oh yea Ive been reading a decent amount.
Painting Beside Itself by David Joselit
Merlin Carpenter On Michael Kreber
Tomorrow's Forcast: Strikingly Clear

Me and a few friends started up a little discussion/ critique/ confession/ potluck/ drinking group.  We meet every other wednesday and every other thursday to discuss our work, or an article that someone picked.  Its like an Artists Anonymous group... "Hi my name is Kevin, and my work is about...." Its been good, we have our second meeting tonight at my apartment. 

I went to a few good shows 2 weeks ago too, Ill mention them in an upcoming post.

Thats all for now

Artist Resumes

So this week I tracked down a few artist resumes to use as a basis for creating my own, and for finding some leads for possible awards and residencies.  Ill start off with a grad student at Rutgers, and an all around good guy, Dustin Metz:  
Dustin's website and CV
Awards:
Discovery Grant from the Pew Center for Arts and Heritage
http://www.pcah.us/the-center/grants-awarded
The Pew Center offers a variety of grants to both individuals and organizations....in the 5 counties around Philadelphia. So if you live in South Eastern Pa, this would be great!  they give out fellowships of $60,000 to individual artists to help achieve career and artistic goals.  


Residencies: 
Vermont Studio Center 
http://www.vermontstudiocenter.org/
Vermont Studio Center is the shit, they accept artists in all stages of their career and Ive heard through the grapevine that they like students a lot.   


Next up is working artist Stacy Fisher:
http://www.stacyfisher.net/cv
Residencies:
Vermont Studio center


The Edward F. Albee Foundation:
http://www.albeefoundation.org/Welcome.html
The Edward F. Albee Foundation offers 4 and 6 week residencies for artists and writers between May and October in Montauk Long Island... They are currently accepting applications for 2012.  It looks beautiful, just watch out for the Reptilian Humanoids of Camp Hero:
http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/montauk/esp_montauk.htm
http://www.philadelphia-experiment.com/Camp_Hero_Fort_Montauk.htm
ANYWAY...


She also went to Chautauqua Art Institute: 
http://www.ciweb.org/school-of-art/
I went here and can vouch for it... some of the artists they bring in totally don't get it but it is a good place to go and make work in a secluded and beautiful place.  They usually have upwards of 30 students in the program too, which is good for meeting other like minded peers.  There is no limit to how many times you can go. 


Ann Pibal:
Awards:
The Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Visual Arts Grant
http://louiscomforttiffanyfoundation.org/grants_program.html
This is a biennial grant for artists whose work shows promise but has not been recognized.  It has already been decided for 2011, so if the world doesn't end in a fiery blaze in 2012, then it would be a good thing to apply for.


Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters and Sculptors Fellowship
http://www.joanmitchellfoundation.org/
is by nomination only and Sam Van Akin also got one so you're best off not getting your hopes up about this one. 


American Academy of Arts and Letters
http://www.artsandletters.org/about.php
They are a very prestigious organization that gives out lots of money and buys art to donate to museums. To get an award you need to be nominated by a member... current members... Thomas Nozkowski and Catherine Murphy are members along with Jim Dine and Chuck Close... so next time you see either of those lovable characters (Catherine or Tom) give em a big ole hug!  And get them to really like your work.


The Pollock-Krasner Foundation
http://www.pkf.org/grant.html
The grant goes out to artists who have been working as a professional artist for significant amount of time... so give this one a few years before you apply.


New York Foundation for The Arts Fellowship
http://www.nyfa.org/level2.asp?id=1&fid=1&sid=44
NYFA is a great resource, their fellowships are for residents of New York state and are given out in a variety of disciplines, and I think they go in cycles, like painting and stuff one year, dance and music the next etc. 


Residencies:
Yaddo
http://yaddo.org/yaddo/history.shtml
In Saratoga Springs NY, looks beautiful.  Need to be a Professional artist.


Cité International des Arts:
http://citedesarts.pagesperso-orange.fr/cite-internationale-des-arts-english-presentation.html
This looks pretty sick I have to say... Also need to be a 'Professional Artist' 


MacDowell Colony
http://www.macdowellcolony.org/apply.html
Open to professionals and emerging artists alike, with residencies in the summer and the fall.


Saltonstall Residency 
http://www.saltonstall.org/content/category/summer-fellowships.html'
Up in Ithaca New York, open to residence of New York state, emerging and established artists.


Ucross Foundation
http://www.ucrossfoundation.org/residency_program/
In the Wyoming Rockies... 6-8 weeks in the fall or spring. Open to artists in any stage of their career.




Joshua Abelow:
Residencies:
Vermont Studio Center (is the place to go)
The Banff Center
http://www.banffcentre.ca/va/programs.mvc#Banff%20Artist%20In%20Residence%20Programs
Located in Alberta Canada. 
Takt Kunstprojektraum
http://www.taktberlin.org/residency/index.htm
Can't figure out how or where to apply... but a residency in Germany would be awesome. 


That is pretty much all Ive got for now, I found a few more awards that are now defunct... I also have a list of residencies, where they are located, and the application deadlines that a friend of mine put together that I should post. 
In the meantime stay tuned because I'm going to post my own CV/resume soon.  

Studio Journal 1

Ive been pretty productive I spose.  I always try to get in the studio and at least move some shit around for a few hours each day.  Im really trying to be a studio rat these days.  Ill start with some images of what Im working on now and what my studio looks like.

 

 I cant get any good pictures of this thing but it's done and I don't have a title for it yet.

 

 Works in progress

 "The sun shining into my studio at exactly 2pm" 

So Ive been reading about Katharina Grosse, I think she is wonderful and the way she approaches painting is very free and extremely interesting.  There is a good article about her exhibition at Mass MoCA in this months Art in America, as well as a good interview on the magazine's website. 

Im trying to get up to Bard and Dia to see the Blinky Palermo show.  I also like him a lot but really need to see the work in person.  

The list of things to do this week is as follows:

1. Finish at least 2 of the things Im working on right now

2. Try to decide "why I make art" and "what my art is about" so I can talk about it at a little potluck dinner get together me and a few friends are organizing.

3.  Try to catch up to my work.  I feel like I have all of these ideas about art and material and image and object and space and shit but nothing to make art about.... I feel productive as far as making stuff goes but I maybe need to focus.

4. keep going to the studio everyday.

5. Write write write about what Im doing and ideas I have.

6. Read some of the articles I scanned from the Art Criticism booklet put out by Stoney Brook

7.  Have fun