An interesting piece from a couple weeks back in the LA Times. Christopher Knight discusses the greatly exaggerated reports of painting’s death. In reference to painters under 45 years old (hey, that’s me!) he says:

I think of them as “the undead.” Do the math: Born in the 1960s and 1970s, these are artists who came of age in a world where painting was widely and sometimes loudly proclaimed to be finished, kaput — dead.

Or, as Kozloff complained, more likely it was just being ignored to death. Painting was the crazy old uncle rambling around in the attic, and about whom the less said the better.

To put a finer point on it, he suggests that, if we’re told we shouldn’t be painting, that probably means we’re on the right track. I don’t think that’s just contrarian, though it does give me an adrenaline rush of the Devil’s advocate sort when I hear stuff like that. No, it’s practical – art bears a responsibility to follow its own path, and if art-world “norms” are pushing back, you’re doing something “right,” or — perhaps more accurately — deliciously wrong.

1091507
watercolor on paper
4″ X 4″

Received this week in the post: one Sporozoan Hankie from Rob Roy Chalmers. He is doing a project called “embroider this” where other people send him clothing or other items, and he will embroider one of his Sporozoan drawings on the item, then return it.

I’m sort of old-fashioned in that I carry a hankie every day. And yes, I use them. Why waste all that paper? And besides, a clean cotton hankie is always handy for cleaning your glasses or wiping food off the face of your four-year-old.

So now I need to decide whether to carry and use this hankie. I think I will, but still… feels funny.

This was presented last night at the SeeSound Lounge in Seattle’s Belltown. The place is swankier than I am, but it was fun. Lulu and I presented to about 75 people. The place was lousy with architects.

The format is 20 slides, presented for 20 seconds each. The audio starts part-way through. Sorry for the background noise. I need a better microphone.

Lulu and I are participating in a Pecha Kucha this coming Tuesday. Here’s a description of the event from the Pecha Kucha Night website:

Pecha Kucha Night was conceived in 2003 as a place for young designers to meet, network, and show their work in public. But as we all know, give a mike to a designer (especially an architect) and you’ll be trapped for hours. The key to Pecha Kucha Night is its patented system for avoiding this fate. Each presenter is allowed 20 images, each shown for 20 seconds each – giving 6 minutes 40 seconds of fame before the next presenter is up. This keeps presentations concise, the interest level up, and gives more people the chance to show.

Pecha Kucha (which is Japanese for the sound of conversation) has tapped into a demand for a forum in which creative work can be easily and informally shown, without having to rent a gallery or chat up a magazine editor. This is a demand that seems to be global – as Pecha Kucha Night, without any pushing, has spread virally to over 80 cities across the world.

Of course, neither of us has started to prepare. On the other hand, how much can you prepare? We get 20 slides each, and you really don’t have to talk much (or at all) if you don’t want to.

When I say “haven’t started to prepare,” I don’t mean that I haven’t been thinking about it. I just haven’t started to collect images. I can’t help but think of some prankster-ish ways to pull it off… maybe 20 identical slides that each say [4' 33"], and just stand there silently? Maybe something along the lines of David Byrne’s “Envisioning Emotional Epistemological Information“? What I’m more seriously thinking, though, is to present the muse (metaphorically), and not so much of the work. Twenty slides of my paintings would be both too much and too little.

If I’m a good boy, I’ll show the result in an upcoming post.

Looks as though the upcoming show at Davidson Contemporary will be in March of 2008. I had a brief conversation with Sam last night, and while it’s not written in ink yet, it’s at least in dark pencil. Also showing that month at DC: Tram Bui’s architectural scaffold studies (which I adore) and Dionne Zwirner.

Time to call the framer.