5/8/08
6:47 AM
had an opportunity to visit old friend and mentor, james carroll yesterday at the nap [new arts program’s office/exhibition space] in kutztown, pa - always provocative and delightful ...
handed off the 8 hours of tapes i made of the marfa symposium from last weekend ...
if anyone will enjoy them as much as me, it’ll be james ...
got a preview of john yau’s handmade book collaboration he did with white crow paper, nap, and max gimblett - circular pages and text, antique photographs, considerable craftsmanship, naive drawing/painting, opposing content, mundane palette, apparently haphazard or in defiance of the form - too many questions yet to formulate an opinion; but i do have to wonder if the content is excessively legitimized by the making of its’ form - the ‘book’ ...
also saw a bunch of work submitted for the ‘small works invitational’ - from a cursory view - just more of the same - and that’s no reflection on ‘nap’ - i just don’t see artists displaying any real vision, commitment, and originality these days ...
read yau’s article on jasper johns in the brooklyn rail ...
[http://www.brooklynrail.org/2008/04/artseen/jasper-johns2]
insightful and interesting to me how the ‘gang’ of artists like johns, twombly, rauschenberg, and warhol steered in different directions from early on in their careers - with such different results - the ‘rail’ is a must have to anyone interested in critical art reading these days ...
took a stroll down lally’s alley this morning to find some troublesome stuff as only michael can articulate it - a brilliant man ...
