Art Critic

One of my joys in traveling is to visit museums. I enjoy the art, of course, but also the other people enjoying the art (or by turns being puzzled or even repulsed by it). When we were in NYC, FFP and I handed the camera back and forth and shot pictures while at MOMA. One thing I like about that museum is that except for some special exhibits you can take photos there. Here I think this viewer has unintentionally become part of the exhibiting of this Pollock.

Yesterday was my walkie/talkie (and lunch) with a dear friend. Given the searing temps in Austin we didn't go too far for lunch (Chez Nous on Neches) although that ten blocks or so was enough to feel a bit hot and sweaty. Afterward we decided to go to AMOA where an exhibit about memory has been mounted. FFP and I went to the opening but, honestly, it's hard to enjoy a show at the opening. After that we stopped at Arthouse at Jones Center where the New American Talent is up. My friend is a playwright and he is working on a play that involves the art world. We had a rambling discussion of what is and is not art, what is 'good' or 'bad' and so forth. That's a discussion that never ends, of course. One of the best things about museums and galleries and movies and plays and performances and reading and writing is the way we don't just consume it...we are all critics. Sure, we listen to the 'real' critics and, in the visual art world, are very influenced by them. My friends says that putting something in a gallery, putting a seven figure price on it attracts some people.

Personally I love learning what I like, what I love, what merely puzzles me. Given our discussion we pronounced on the art we saw yesterday. It was interesting how our opinions differed and how quickly they were formed.

Here's a photo I edited that FFP took at MOMA of a girl knelling before the art with a tattoo.

It Dawned On Me

That's this morning's sunrise, captured by himself, FFP.

Lots of random things occur to me (and happen to me) that don't get recorded because, in spite of having three blogs, they don't fit into a coherent (yeah, right) whole to slip in anywhere. Well, today, I'm just going to catch up with a few random threads.

I actually finished a book. Marcel Bénabou's "Why I Have Not Written Any of My Books." If anyone else finds it amusing that I managed to finish that (short) non-book (according to its author) while several other books lurk (half-finished, half-started, bought recently but not cracked open) then go on, laugh. And I'm not doing a good job of keeping up with newspapers either.

One book I bought is Diana Athill's "Somewhere Towards the End." It's about growing old, approaching death. I hope I finish it before I die. I keep thinking the title should be "Somewhere Toward the End." Yeah, I can't stop trying to edit myself or others.

That's really a problem, the constant editing. I sometimes even spend a bunch of time writing and re-writing an e-mail. Today FFP wrote a draft of an e-mail, sent it to me for editing then sent it. Sometimes editing gets in the way of writing.

Last night we went to a very hip opening of a very hip show at Arthouse at Jones Center. This British artist Matt Stokes created a film about punk rock and collected a bunch of Austin punk rock ephemera to display with it. I realized that, while I am not (and probably never will be) a punk rock fan that I loved the exhibit and the people at the opening. The film was a very santized way to experience the art of punk and art made from punk. Cool. I talked to a venture capitial biggie who is a friend of mine and told him I read his blog. He said he read mine, too. (Yikes.)

After the opening we went to Ruth's Chris Steakhouse. I had a glass of Pinot Noir and the very excellent carpaccio.

Today I played tennis. The cold swirling wind lessened my enjoyment and I made too many mistakes but I enjoyed it. We got out in the wind again to go to Whole Foods and buy limes, mango sorbet (some mango margaritas are in the offing), yogurt, bananas, vegetarian barbecue, hot tofu dip, green onions and a tomato. A few groceries and not so much we couldn't easily carry it home. It was cold and windy, though, and we decided that even though we had said we'd go to a cocktail party at Long Center that the sniffles would win out...we are staying in the rest of the day. And...I'm going to get some things done even if it's just read the newspapers or even a book!

A Story Worth Telling

This is a popular thing to do in the digital age, I know. Taking pictures of people taking pictures with their little screens just visible. This is another picture from MOMA. I like taking pictures in museums but not just of the art and objects. I like to have people interacting with the art. It makes my story of the museum one alive with the other patrons. I've shown a few others in recent days from the MOMA visit. One of my favorite in this genre is from the Musée d'Orsay and is shown here.

Are my pictures worthwhile? Worth looking at? Is my story worth telling?

This has been a topic I've batted around in the last few days. Here and here. I even had a conversation with one loyal reader on the topic. [Ed. Note: The rest of them are loyal, too. Just, um, respectfully quiet.]

This inspired me to look back at my old journal where I had topics like Who, What, When, Why and Where. The Who is a little bio. It is a place to start with a story that is really sort of boring. [Ed. Note: You had to revise it before you wanted to point people to it. A life story keeps changing until (and perhaps after) death.] My story is a mixture of the true and the false, the well-remembered and distorted and, of course, the completely forgotten. Like every story.

Anyway, it's something to do, pondering a memoir, to distract me from other things. Downsizing has reached a gut-wrenching point that I might discuss tomorrow. And I'm also thinking about writing about how blogs and memoirs in books differ. Writing about writing. The dodge of the blocked writer? Talk among yourselves.

Artist's Negative Space

At MOMA they had a small collection of Allan McCollum's Shapes. He conceived this idea of being able to make a small work of art for each person in the world. The shapes are computer-generated and, quoting the MOMA info, "His system has the capacity to produce thirty-one billion shapes, far more than peak–population estimates for the mid–twenty–first century, when a decline is predicted to set in." A lot of them look like forgotten countries. I photographed this display with two interesting people. Two unique individuals partly in motion.

The conversation at my lunch on Wednesday wound around to an affliction (as I called it, not my companion) that my lunch buddy began suffering after being hit by a truck. (I think it was a truck, although a passenger truck, but he was walking.) He's 'lucky' I guess that the only apparent result manifested in a loss of smell and taste for some but not all things. (It seems like a big deal to me actually.) I had offered some of my pizza. After he ate it I asked, "Can you still taste garlic?"

"No."

"Well, lots of garlic. Have to gargle today!"

"Thanks. There is nothing like garlic breath at the gym!"

I started joking about someone spotting for him and being bowled over by garlic breath and letting him drop a weight on his chest.

But we got around to talking about this loss of sensation. He said one friend of his thought maybe the changes in his brain from the injury had actually fueled his writing. He said he felt music in a new way since the accident.

So is our art, the unique things we produce, the sum of our unique afflictions and not our unique abilities? When we are blocked, is our competence overwhelming us?

Is my bloggy writing entertaining? Are my shop window and museum pictures that don't require(willing) models or a particular adeptness with a camera beautiful to some? Art even? Am I working within the negative space of my limitations? Is that the only place we have? Do I blog because the form fits my mental restrictions? (My buddy is disinterested in writing anything but plays. Why?) If it's good (big question), is it good because of the things I cannot do as opposed to the things I can?

Did Allan McCollum come up with his mass-produced but one-of-a-kind works because of a particular affliction?

If I am creating anything in my bloggy space, it is definitely somewhat a product of shyness, attention deficit, fear of judgment, etc. And what are these things but infirmities?

Of course, when we explore artists who lost vision, musicians who lost hearing (or use of one hand) and writers who were unable to actually type or write or perhaps even say words, we find some great creations. In spite of? Because of?

As a last thought, and going back to the first in this series (Writer's Negative Space), memoirs need adversity. That must be true or would-be memoir writers wouldn't make some up! Do some of us lack enough pain to write certain things? Clearly not because they can be invented and convincingly so.

Study in Black and Gray

I took this shot in MOMA in New York when we were there. (Which seems like ages ago now.) I like the motion and the (lack of) color palate and the way the guard and the gal taking a picture bookend the picture and the way the wall color and painting (actually a manipulated photo) cooperate in making a new work of art with the people. (Ha. That's me pretending my photography is art!)

What is also amusing about this picture is that MOMA is mounting a new show this week ( “Color Chart: Reinventing Color, 1950 to Today”) with an emphasis on color. And in The New York Times a guard was featured wearing a vest designed for the show in an article about it. It could be the same guard!

I mentioned the weather in my last post so I have to confess that the weather for tennis was so glorious that it dismissed my thoughts of politics, downsizing and taxes. Mostly. And I did get my in-laws taxes finished. Otherwise I wasn't too productive.

I'm getting nostalgic for this house. And we are starting to face some logistic issues. A couch we bought for the condo is being delivered so we have to have it delivered here and moved to the condo later. But we can't put it where the couch we gave away was because we are going to refinish the floor in that room. And it's spring so we have to at least supervise a lot of yard work. Well, FFP does, bless him. Anyway, as we move and touch all this stuff, there are lots of memories and impressions of comfort that we feel we might be giving up. This confusion and these feeling are inevitable, I imagine.

As part of my sorting and sifting, I bring things into my (still FAIRLY neat!) office and let them sit there while I decide what to do with them. Currently I have some magazines from the '30's and '60's, two clay beer mugs from Munich and a set of cards with an accompanying book called "The Observation Deck" which is designed to inspire creativity. Ha. You mean like actually writing something besides a blog?

Familiarity

Familiarity breeds comfort. I'm not sure that's how the saying goes though. Here is FFP looking at a work of art at MOMA. This piece had been drawn from their vast collection for a show. When we saw it, we were drawn to it and I wanted to take FFP's picture with it. Mostly because we had seen it before. It had also been on view in the summer of 2005. It really made us laugh then because of the globe motif on the mannequin's shirt. Because I was wearing my decades-old map shirt which I love but which is wearing thin.

But really. Don't you enjoy your routines and the places and people you are familiar with?

Not that I don't like to shake things up. Go some place new. Turn a corner and see an artwork never seen before and astounding.

But the familiar draws us.

This morning when I struggled to get up at 7:30 it was to execute a routine that, if possible, I like to do every day. I get coffee, I call my dad. I post a picture (and, usually, too many words) on Austin Daily Photo. Then I might write an entry here or bring up a computer file and write my personal journal.

I was thinking, "If I spent that time that I usually steal out of the day for coffee and self-indulgent stream-of-consciousness drivel in my blog or journal, then I could complete short stories, novels, plays, screenplays and, even, coherent memoirs." We went to a Austin Film Festival script reading last night and seeing that some people (actually twin brothers and their friend a short story writer) have completed a script and, no less, mounted a very polished reading with Jesse Plemons in the lead and the likes of Brad Leland, Ray Benson and John Merriman. (The title is "Out of the Woods" and the writers are Alex and Andrew Smith and Chris Offutt.)

But I know the shape and requirements of my blogging and my journaling. Which is to say: it doesn't have to go anywhere, it can be any size, it doesn't have to "get published" or "get noticed" or "get produced." What gets pushed to the public is under my constant editing control. I don't need an agent. I don't copyright.

It's familiar. It's comfortable. Of course, a little change now and then is nice.

The End of the Recluse?

Photo was taken this morning on Congress. It's a reflection in the window of the sales office for the 21C Museum Condominiums. The soft Bug is part of the art exhibit in the sales office. The eventual building will include a showcase for contemporary art.

Yes, I got out of my cedar fever fog and out of the house both last night and this morning. Can't say as I'm over the drainage and such. Managed to coddle myself yesterday for the hours leading up to a wonderful dinner party. We bought the party as a package from the Ballet Austin fete auction. Included were everything for a great party but guests. We were allowed to have it in a fabulous home using their kitchen and dining room and beautiful flatware, china, glassware, chargers, etc. A florist made beautiful cubes of flowers for the table. A caterer prepared the food and provided waiters. Wines were pulled from the collection of a local connoisseur to match the food. A piano player from the ballet came by to play during the cocktail hour. FFP provided the people, inviting people to dine and visit and share experiences and world views. We met one couple we hadn't met before he invited through some connections. The party was stunning and the food and wine wonderful although I was suffering from a little dulling of the sense of smell and taste. I managed to reach a stasis with the allergy and get through the party with no coughing, sneezing and a minimum of nose blowing. It was really great. The owners of the house didn't sit down to dinner with us but did visit during cocktails and apps and after dessert. It is really special to have such great food, service and wine along with great conversation from interesting people. The generous caterer, florist, homeowner, cellar owner and piano player donated their time and talent and we gave the ballet a nice donation and a good time was had by all, I believe.

I was a little choked up after I got home, but after a few more drugs I got a good night's sleep and actually stayed in bed until the sun was streaming in our southeast windows. By 9:30 we were headed downtown. We went to Austin Java for breakfast and read The New York Times. Then we walked around and over to East Sixth and snapped a few pictures. I think I'm getting better, allergy-wise. But just to be safe I think I'll stay in the rest of the day and read the rest of the papers and drink hot drinks. Maybe I will continue sorting some files, though. More about that, perhaps tomorrow, when I talk about the TIB file.

Unexecuted Ideas

I love museums but I'm almost as fascinated by the other people as by the art and artifacts. Today I read in the Arts Section of The New York Times about a photographer Thomas Struth who took pictures of people in museums looking at art. And then inserted some of them in the Prada among the paintings for one show. Hey...I had that idea. Lots of times I get one of us in the picture, too. But sometimes strangers as here in MOMA in 2005.

I finished shredding a bunch of old financial stuff from the eighties and early nineties today. I always think I will keep stuff organized, discard it at just the right time and then it ends up jumbled together in a box. There was almost nothing we needed to save in the box but it needed sifting through to be sure of that. And some things needed to be shredded. Although many accounts were defunct and financial institutions had changed their names, etc. a depressing number of things had signatures, driver's license numbers and even Social Security Numbers.

I did find a report from an EEG I had 1990 after having an unexpected faint. They didn't find anything. I decided to save it, though. "The predominant waking activity is a well-organized admixture of 10-11 per second occipital alpha with some intermixed low to medium voltage fast." At least my brain waves were once well-organized.

Slowly stuff moves to the thrift store piles. Including some of the stuff that I saw receipts for in those credit card bills from the twenty years or so ago. And as I decide to keep books I wonder when I will have the time to sit down and enjoy reading them. I have been doing a better job of reading the papers that show up since our subscription to The Wall Street Journal lapsed. (FFP has renewed it now, I think.) As a consequence I have been reading a book I found and decided was a keeper. Memoirs by Tennessee Williams. Published in 1972 it is a stream of consciousness remembrance and diary of what was going on at the moment. I seem to have bought it at Powell's during a trip to Portland. Believe I'll keep it even after reading it. What a name dropper he is!

I suppose that maybe I'll look back on the downsizing of 2007-2008 as something that I did execute on, however slowly and painfully.

E.A.S.T.ern Art

The graffiti in this picture apparently refers to the latest show at AMOA (Austin Museum of Art) but I took it on the sidewalk at one of the 86 official locations in this year's East Austin Studio Tour in Austin. It was a lovely day and we started our eastwardly adventures by eating at the Eastside Cafe. Then we took in a few of the more northernly studios (including Karen Maness) and then a few of the more furthest south (including Art Amici where Jennifer Balkan was showing).

It was a glorious day starting cool and sunny and warming up to the point where the sunny spots felt warm and the shade felt cool.

This afternoon I saw the premiere of young Jake Sawyer's short film Downloader. A pretty ambitious undertaking from a teenager, this film showed a very adult sensibility and communicated obsessive compulsive behavior, office politics, office romance, paranoia and our Internet/drug/technology culture in a way you wouldn't really think a young kid would understand. Plus it had cops and stunts and lots more. John Merriman starred and was fabulous and funny and convincing from the beginning to the end. Young Jake directed a lot of adults in this short and did it well.

It's an artsy town, Austin. Radical NY indeed.

Daily Photo

I've been reading Paris Daily Photo for a while and while this site isn't daily and isn't always Austin so it can't be Austin Daily Photo, I appreciate the idea.

Eric of PDP published this entry and I immediately thought of a picture I had FFP shoot at MOMA in New York City in the summer of 2005. So here it is. I think it's pretty clear who is real and who is not in this one. Maybe.

I had in mind to blog today on two other topics. I fully intend to write one entitled "I Don't Read Enough" and another under the rubric "This Aquisitive Life." Instead I've published this (over a year old) photo.

And so it goes.

Culture Shock

I like this one because the graceful Degas sculptures of ballerinas are being studied rather intently by these decidedly punk guys. You have to love those moments. Plus the glass case and movement (no flash allowed in the Musée d'Orsay) provide the kind of reflection and distance I like in my photos. I do them primarily to be exhibited on computer screens after all, creating yet another level of reflection.

Cutlure and fashion and art captured and manipulated by my chosen moment. I like it.

Today I was reading a book (Paris, Paris: Journey into the City of Light by David Downie) and one of the essays made me want to go back to Paris and go to a particular area and take some pictures. I have been following Paris Daily Photo and I love it. Eric's photos capture current events, details, traditional sights and surprises. I think it's amusing how each of us puts a stamp on the things our digital memory cards capture...even though we might stand on almost the same spot.

Food is Serious Business for the French

In France, food is serious business. And there are still many specialists. Bakeries, pastry shops, fish shops, cheese shops. Waiters are professionals, chefs are revered. The U.S. (thankfully) is getting more like this but I doubt we will ever catch up. The picture shows a detail from a poissonnerie (fish store) that was around the corner from our hotel during our trip in May. Notice that the tile is in the form of...fish scales. These details make it so much fun!

I spent some time over the weekend collecting bits and pieces of info about the food I ate while in Paris and have posted a draft on my regular WEB site. I loved thinking about the food, the locations, finding information about places on the WEB. I kept having to go get a cup of coffee while I worked on it, though, because I kept thinking of all those café visits!

I love travel. My favorite thing about travel is eating in new places. My second favorite thing is museums. Some museums are starting to have fairly well-acclaimed restaurants (for example, the Modern in Ft. Worth and the MOMA in NYC). Now, that's what I'm talking about!

And I Just Wanted to Comment

Yeah, I was just going to comment about Rob's Monster and Me Blog but it seems I have to be sucked into bloggerdom to do that.

But here's a picture I took at the Modern Art Museum of Ft. Worth.