Art Fair season is among us! Unfortunately I will be heading back to West Virginia tomorrow to begin a new project, so I won’t be able to make it to all the shows, but I did get a chance to see the Pulse show at pier 40. Sally just happened to be working there, so not only did I get an exclusive tour, but some VIP espresso as well!

The work on display was extremely varied and overwhelming, with 101 exhibitors representing artists from 26 countries. There was far too much to take in on a quick visit, and certainly too much to write about. I would like to mention that some of Curtis Mann’s work was on display at the Kusseneers Gallery area. Curtis and I worked together my very first summer at the Workshops in Maine and he has remained a good friend. His work involves taking found photographs and running them through a process that combines enamel clear-coat and bleach to selectively remove areas of the image. The resultant images transform the original photographs from specific situations and moments into fantastic and otherworldly scenarios. The humans in the photos become lost in this new and unsettling space, bringing further attention to their original places in landscapes scarred by war and conflict, which they also don’t belong in.

Curtis’s work is featured at Kusseneers Gallery’s space: Booth G-07. Pulse is taking place at Pier 40 on West Houston Street, and will be going on until March 8. Tickets are $20.

Curtis Mann, Attempt, connection (somewhere, Israel series), 2007
acrylic varnish and graphite on bleached found photographs

Curtis Mann, Wanderings - DETAIL, 2008

Brenton Hamilton, a master of alternative photographic processes, has just updated his website with new work. I have been a longtime admirer of Brenton’s mysterious and deeply affecting images, and have also had the privilege of working with him on several projects, as well as a cross-country mentorship that has been a constant source of inspiration and motivation. His new collection of images (gallery IV on his website) consists largely of circular portraits rendered in neutral shades of browns and golds created by a luscious combination of platinum-palladium and gum-bichromate. There are also the occasional salted paper prints which Hamilton has crafted in shades of red, as well as strict gum-bichromate prints which turn deep shades of green.

The portraits themselves seem to bring our attention more into the personalities and inner dialogues of Brenton’s figures, as opposed to some of his earlier work in which the actions and interactions of the figures with their surroundings and fellow inhabitants seemed to dominate. Here, the primary focus seems to be on the identity of the subjects, or rather, their multiple identities. The term two-faced takes on a very literal meaning in these new images, as several of the figures seem to be emerging from behind masks or splitting themselves into separate identities. Or are there simply two people occupying the frame? Just as the circles themselves aren’t always circles, and the colors shift from browns to greens to reds, Hamilton’s new images defy any quick categorization and attempts to gain easy answers. I could write about them for days.

www.brentonhamiltonstudio.net (go to gallery IV)

I have sadly become what I had feared when I created this area of the site… a neglectful blog owner. But no more! Thanks to the chastisement of friends I have decided to finally make an update.

I am currently visiting Beijing, China..  just in time for the Lunar New Year. My longtime friend Ben Schuellein and his girlfriend Sophie have been living here for several years and have graciously allowed me to stay with them while I’m here. The celebrations for the New Year have been going on for over a week now. The celebrating reached a peak the night before the new year began when fireworks exploded over every block of Beijing for over six straight hours. I have never witnessed anything like it. I was completely awestruck and overwhelmed by the scope of the celebration. I am attaching a small photo of Ben in the midst of several thousand firecrackers and a short video of a pan across the skyline. The video is small, but you can see how the fireworks stretch over every part of the city.

–> –> Fireworks over Beijing <-- <--

I broke down my studio today in preparation for moving. It was amazing how much junk was in that room.. interesting junk, for sure, but there is only so much room in the moving truck. Among the oddities that I took to the dump: one waveform vectorscope monitor (broken), one S-VHS deck (broken), one G1 iMac (broken), and two color tubes from a broken large-screen TV. I had hopes of fixing these, or at least scrapping them for parts, but that job will have to fall on someone else. If that person is you then hurry up and get over to the Rockport dump!

Here is a photo of my empty studio (cow skull added for effect):

I mentioned in the last post that I would write about the Henry Darger exhibit at the American Folk Art Museum in New York, so here goes: Go see the henry Darger exhibit at the American Folk Art Museum in New York. Seriously, it was fantastic. Seeing Darger’s work in person is amazing, a little creepy, but amazing. The man certainly had an extraordinary imagination, but troubling obsessions.

Some highlights of the exhibit for me were Robyn O’Neil’s These Moving Bodies, These Dumb Processions:

and Anthony Goicolea’s Fleeing:

There were many other extraordinary works in the show, but I won’t post any more in the hopes that you will go out and see them for yourself!

Dargerism: Contemporary Artists and Henry Darger will be on display until September 21.

Hmmm… I guess sarcasm does not work well in blog-speak. To clear things up from the last post, I don’t really think that Jeff Koons is a fresh new face in the art world. He is pretty high up on my list..  although the jury is still out for me on the “Made in Heaven” series.

In other news..  I decided to take another stab at the Met today, this time just in the European Paintings section with a side trip to the photography exhibits. I made an attempt to stay on course and see the artwork in a chronological order..  which is trickier than you would think. That place is tough for the easily distracted…  a few wrong turns and you are a continent (and usually centuries) away from where you started. I decided to go through and take images of images that I found to be personally inspiring or thought-provoking. It’s an experiment I reccommend to anyone searching for their own voice as an artist, which is something I am certainly eager to find. A later examination of images you choose based soley on your reaction to is a great way to deduce your own inspirations and interests.

Here are just a few of the ones that immediately jumped out at me:

Jean-Francois Millet: Haystacks: Autumn, ca. 1874

Pascal-Adolphe-Jean Dagnan-Bouveret: The Pardon in Brittany, 1886

Johan Christin Dahl: The Eruption of Vesuvius, 1824

William Merritt Chase: James Abbott McNeil Whistler, 1885

Which reminded me immediately of a photograph that I love by Erwin Olaf, from his Fashion Victims series:

Thats all for The Met. I have lots more, but this long post is already going to be tough on that infamous 30 seconds of interest people have on the internet. I also visited the American Folk Art Museum to see an excellent exhibition based on Henry Darger’s work, which will be my next post. And in something completely unrelated, I just watched a crazy show on Discovery about army ants..  it freaked me out something awful, and I highly reccommend it.

I will be in New York for the next few weeks to do some assisting jobs and see Sally’s end of semester show at Parsons. I never seem to make time for the museums and gallerys when I am in the city, so I am hoping to rememdy that with this trip. First on the list was the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The Met houses a massive collection of art from every era of every culture that ever made anything at all. It would be a lot to try to see in a week, so we tried to limit our trip to the modern art collection and a few special exhibits. Tara Donovan had a great installation, and Damien Hurst’s The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living was an incredible thing to see in person.

There were also a few pieces on the roof gallery from a newcomer named Jeff Koons. I haven’t heard of this fellow, but I predict big things.

A few highlighths:

Thanks to everyone who came out to the opening last night! There have been terrible storms the past two out of three times I have shown work at Asymmetrick, so I was happy to have a picture-perfect evening for the show. Many thanks to Jared Cowan and Brenton Hamilton for helping so much with everything. The work will be hanging until the 18th of August so stop by if you are in the area.

Here are some photos from the night:

I will be showing work at Asymmetrick Arts in Rockland, Maine from July 16 to August 18. The show will have the complete “Problems & Solutions” series as well as a few other pieces. Stop by if you are in the neighborhood!

Welcome to the new blog page at mat-thorne.com … and welcome to the new website as well!  Many thanks to Matt Bagwell for his hard work and programming talents. This update is a big one, and has been a while in the making.

Hopefully this page will house all the thoughts, inspirations, and news that have no home on the website proper. Check back soon, and feel free to chastise me if nothing new appears for a while.