All Art Friday

All Art Friday

All Art Friday Spotlights

✦ "Almost everything I know about art I either learned by looking at it and talking to myself, or from listening to artists talk about art. They see all of it through their own work, their own notions. . . ." Read Jerry Saltz's post about Ruscha's wonderful talk in Vulture, "Seeing Out Loud: Ed Ruscha Talked About Eight Old Master Paintings at the Frick, and I'll Never See Them the Same Way", and then watch the video below.

Here's "Frieze Masters Talks: Ed Ruscha in Conversation with Ian Wardropper":

✦ In manipulations of landscapes and cityscapes, photographer Hossein Zare of Iran creates beautiful, often breaktaking tableaux of emptiness and isolation. His minimalist black-and-white images are stunning. (My thanks to On Being for the link.)

Hossein Zare Photography on FaceBook, Pinterest, and Tumblr

✦ Hundreds of years before the appearance on Pantone Color Guide, a Dutch artist known as "A. Boogert" created a hand-written and hand-painted, nearly 800-page book, Traite des couleurs servant a la peinture a l'eau (1692), at E-Corpus, to serve as a guide to painting and color. View the book, kept at Bibliotheque Mejanes, Aix-en-Provence, France, at the link to get an idea of just how extraordinary it is. Read a Colossal post about the book. (Note: Accessing the book requires patience and more than one try.)

✦ Art Detective is the latest crowdsourced online art network. Its aim is to enhance information about the United Kingdom's public art collections. The exchange, available through Your Paintings, has sections for groups, such as British portraits and transport history in art; discussions, news, and resources, including guidelines for researching a painting.

Your Paintings on FaceBook

✦ Black Dog Publishing has released Made by Hand: Contemporary Makers, Traditional Practices. Edited by Leanne Hayman and Nick Warner, the book includes profiles on a bladesmiths, violin makers, stationers, neon sign makers, jewelers, tailors, bee keepers, and other artisans who produce handmade goods with traditional processes. (The book is available in the United States and the United Kingdom from the publisher and from Amazon and other book sellers.)

Cover of Made by Hand

✦ Today's video features selections from the production Art in Progress: Fred Tomaselli (2005) provided by James Cohan Gallery. Tomaselli is the subject of a 2014 FOCUS show at the Modern Art Museum of Ft. Worth. Watch the Art This Week at The Modern video.

Exhibitions Here and There

✭ Continuing through September 14 at the Museum of Chinese in America, New York City, is "Oil and Water: Reinterpreting Ink". The exhibition features the work of artists Qiu Deshu, Wei Jia, and Zhang Hongtu, revealing how each uses ink to reinterpret traditional calligraphy and landscape painting for contemporary means. Artists' bios are at the exhibition link above. 

MOCA on FaceBook, Twitter, and YouTube

✭ The traveling exhibition "An Opening of the Field: Jess, Robert Duncan & Their Circle" is on view at the Katzen Arts Center at American University, Washington, D.C., through August 17. It is the first such show to examine the highly productive collaboration between the late poet Robert Duncan and the late artist Jess Collins ("Jess"), who lived together as a couple in San Francisco, beginning in the 1950s. Included in the exhibition are more than 140 individual and collaborative works of art (paintings, collages, and drawings among them), as well as personal letters from public and private collections and a selection of works by the couple's many friends who were artists. An illustrated catalogue accompanies the show.

Jess, The Enamord Mage: Translation #6, 1965

Oil on Canvas Over Wood, 24.5" x 30"

Collection of M.H. de Young Memorial Museum

Holland Carter, "The Company They Kept: Robert Duncan and Jess, and Their Wonderland of Art", The New York Times, January 16, 2014 (Review of Exhibition at Grey Art Gallery, New York University)

✭ "The Annual 2014: Redefining Tradition", a survey of contemporary American art at National Academy Museum, New York City, features work by such artists and architects as Mark di Suvero, Michael Graves, Dan Gilhooley, Valerie Jaudon, Alfred Leslie, I.M. Pei, Altoon Sultan, Richard Tuttle, Carrie Mae Weems, Betty Woodman, and Jack Youngerman. Continuing through September 14, the exhibition, now in its 188th year, seeks to uncover "affinities, connections, differences, and, most importantly, a relevant continuum of American art and architecture." Works on view include paintings, drawings, sculpture, photography, and architectual studies. (Click on the exhibition link above for a complete list of participants and selected images.)

According to a press release, a gallery has been re-created as a reading room with art catalogues and other materials and videos are presented in the museum lobby to encourage viewers to engage more deeply in viewing and study. Special lectures, public programs, and art workshops are scheduled.

National Academy Museum and School of Fine Arts on FaceBook and Twitter

✭ New York University's Grey Art Gallery continues "Energy That Is All Around", an exhibition of more than 125 works by five artists whose careers began in San Francisco's Mission District in the early 1990s. The five artists are Chris Johanson, Margaret Kilgallen (obituary), Alicia McCarthy, Barry McGee, and Ruby Neri. Featured are paintings, drawings, sculptures, and installations, in addition to works created for the show, which will conclude July 12. Also included are sketches letters, journals scapbooks, cutouts, and other ephemera. A 120-page catalogue Energy That Is All Around (Chronicle Books) accompanies the exhibition (see image below).

Grey Art Gallery on FaceBook and Twitter

The Grey Area, GAG's Blog

✭ Also in New York City is "Joan Mitchell: Trees", on view through August 29 at Cheim & Reid. Presented in collaboration with Joan Mitchell Foundation, the show features seven large canvases of abstracted tree forms by Mitchell (1925-1992) and is accompanied by a full-color catalogue that includes an essay by American poet, art critic, and curator John Yau.

Image of Trees, Oil on Canvas, 1990-91 at Joan Mitchell Foundation 

"Trees" Brochure (pdf)

Read a John Yau essay, "Four Memories of Joan Mithell", at Poetry Foundation.