I lucked out with Elaine Reichek.  She was in town for the unveiling of her facade project for the Gardner Museum.  It’s taken from the correspondence between Mrs. G. and Henry James.  David and his crew had just finished installing the piece when I met up with Elaine for a talk in the Living Room.  Elaine was the first artist to have a residency at the Gardner Museum and she produced the award winning MADAM I’M ADAM CD rom project there.  I still use the piece with my students. It gives another kind of vision to Mrs. G’s house and sort of foretells the augmented reality phase that is happening now.

Elaine is one of my favorite artists.  I first heard of her when one of my professors showed her work in class.  It was White Brushstroke 1 from the exhibition AT HOME AND IN THE WORLD.  In my education, it may have been the first time that I saw a white artist directly and confidently address their position of whiteness.  I was kind of stunned by the way she just turned all these things that were in the air at that time (appropriation, feminism, craft, text, history, erasure, race, and whiteness) on their heads with a cross stitch.  I remember going to the MFA Bookstore and looking for all the texts I could find about her.

In 2004, I was working as Dean at Skowhegan and Elaine was one of the resident faculty.  We became very close that summer and we talked a great deal not just about art, but about life, loss and the importance of community.

It was rainy when we started talking, but it cleared up.  Elaine and I talk about a lot.  We discuss her move to Harlem, gentrification, whiteness, maintaining a career, loss, love, food, galleries, and a bunch of other stuff, if you can believe it.  We went way over time, but it was worth it.  I love Elaine a great deal.  At this time in my own studio practice when things are so unstable and fraught, it was good to sit down with a friend who knows how to keep the work moving forward.

In this talk, Jen and I discuss the trajectory of her career, but we also get into teaching, learning, the role of advanced degree study and the importance creating the space for conversation.

I hope you enjoy this show.

PS: It must be said that Jen makes the best barbecue sauces I’ve ever had.  Ever.

the answer, 2014-15, oil on panel, 18 x 24 inches

I have been working on this painting for about a year now.  It did not start out looking like this.

I had a photograph as a reference for this painting.  I don’t normally work from photos; it’s too difficult for me. I start to feel some kind of weird responsibility, as if the painting won’t be good if it doesn’t look like the photo. I start to get plagued by these aggressive thoughts about correctness and precision that have nothing to do with anything that interests me because the photo becomes the measure of quality.  I ended up getting very uninterested in the painting.  I put it away.

When I took the painting up again,  I was thinking of sanding the whole thing down and making a new painting, but for some reason I didn’t.  I started thinking about how unsatisfied I was with it and that got me thinking that maybe I could make a painting about satisfaction.  And if I could, what would such a painting look like. Are there painterly equivalents to being satisfied?  I started thinking about the last painting I looked at that I could say I felt satisfied.  Not pleased, not interested, not impressed, but satisfied.

At the Armory Show this year, I saw a Jocelyn Hobbie picture called Bee, Yellow, Indigo at Fredericks and Freiser.  I had never thought much about her work because I had only seen it in reproduction and seeing it in reproduction allowed me to completely misunderstand it.  The cliche exists because it’s true-the painting is better in person.  Magazine reproductions of Hobbie’s paintings make them look illustrative.  What I thought was simple geometry is an almost lapidary arrangement of color that makes up undulating and energetic forms that swirl like energy.  Like a Klimt painting, it is an image of tremendous confidence and erotic power.

What is so satisfying about the Hobbie painting was that every single moment is realized and held in tension with every other moment.  What looks like an illustration in reproduction actually looks like a hallucination in person.  There is a sense of air and movement in the picture that I was not expecting when I saw it.  She has painted this person as something more than a person.

This sense is enhanced by her technical restraint – it is what stops the painting from being an academic exercise of “solving painting problems.”  Her use of painterly processes are in service to creating this sensation about this person in addition to a sense of visual satisfaction.

A painting has to be more than a demonstration of the fact that the painter solved a problem.

I don’t think about process when I am working.  I think that is because the act of painting requires me to think about so many things at the same time.  I am never thinking about “the process” because it isn’t really something that is outside of me.  If I tried to make paintings about process, I fear that they would become a concatenation of painterly effects, “full of sound and fury/Signifying nothing.”  I’ve never been able to be satisfied with process for its own sake.  This may be a reason my work has always been about the figure.  I have always had a subject. It would not occur to me make paintings about process independent of subject.  The subject drives the kind of processes I would and do use.

I have been thinking about Hobbie and a few other artists a lot in the studio these days.  I’ve been seeking out their work and looking deeply at it for some answers.  I struggle greatly with painting because I am after something that I see less and less in contemporary art and I think that thing is satisfaction.  That is not to say that I am looking for art that is simple, or uncomplicated, or facile. What I think is that I am looking for an art that operates outside of the language and techne of marketing and spectacle.  I remember a studio visit with Nayland Blake I had back in 2002.  I was going on about how I wanted to make work that talked about a sense of desire.  Blake said to me, “Desire is the only thing that is produced in late-stage capitalism.  Everyone knows about your desire.  What we don’t know about is your pleasure.”  Thinking about that conversation now, I see the link between pleasure and satisfaction, between process and image.

Cupid and Psyche had a daughter.  Her name is Pleasure.

Nat Meade, Study (Plaid Pantry)

Steve Locke: I have been following your work since we met at Skowhegan 2009 (and I’m lucky enough to have one of your works on paper). I have always felt an affinity for your work not just because of the subject, but because of the qualities of the paintings themselves. You have a way of making images that appear to be simple but upon deeper investigation reveal themselves to be complex and layered in their realization and, by extension, their possible meanings. In an era when so much of painting is directly informed by the digital and the photographic, your paintings don’t just require a slow looking, they demand it. Because of this, your work rewards the viewer not just with an image but with a sensation. I mean this in the way that someone like Bridget Riley is interested in the effect of the painting on your eyes and your body. I get a sense of air, light, energy, heat, and physicality of space from these pictures. That does not happen a lot in contemporary painting the fact that it does in your work is a testament to your practice. In the current moment, you are making paintings that reveal and foreground their process without losing their integrity or importance as pictures. Pictures that illuminate the body as a site of contemplation, disappointment, extremity, or disbelief. Which lead me to my question:

In your painting practice, how do time and light (in both a real way and in a poetic way) influence the choices you make in depicting the body, its movements, and its locations?

Nat Meade: Light is another player or character in my work. I want it to be as tangible and, in a way, as physical as the figures and forms.

Around the time that we met I set out to change my approach to painting. I no longer wanted to make paintings that were referential and dependent on an external source. Instead I wanted to invent a painted moment- performative in its small and inward way. It was important that the images were discovered through their execution. The transition was difficult and for a long time I struggled to make anything satisfying. I needed parameters to make what I was doing challenging and tangible. I came up with a set of self-imposed rules and light became the constant player, a means of focus that also allows for playful discovery. Along these lines forms and figures have been reduced to simplified shapes in a shallow space. I can (hopefully) (more or less) predict how light might rake across the things I paint. I treat everything- light, color and form as a thing-just a stupid thing.

(Photos from Nat Meade’s studio by Jean Paul Gomez)

James Ensor has been described as employing an allegorical use of light. I only know what this means intuitively. It has to do with light asserting itself as a persistent actor. I see it in his work and want it in my own. There is directional lighting in all of my paintings-overly defined beams cutting through the composition, splitting figures, casting shadows, indifferently raking over faces. Color and light are closely linked. I like to assign the light areas a color and dark areas another: make the light areas yellowish and the dark areas green. My friend and artist Michael Brennan has said that “…[t]ime and light are made manifest in [my] work as color. Color as crumpled light.” I think I understand this intuitively as well. I like to build up opaque areas of light and emphasize the literal ridges of light and shadow. It is like repeatedly saying, “Here is the light AND here is the dark.”

Light can add drama and brevity. It can also conceal and ridicule. There is something inane about the cast shadow from a nose or a pair of eyeglasses. I like to zoom in on these moments. My subjects are meant be contradictory: elevated or beatific and buffoonish or absurd. I have been painting these bearded figures at three quarters view, a wedge for a nose, sometimes with gaping mouths like a hollowed out tree. They are these male stand-ins. I have recently realized that this goes back to an Antonio Frasconi print that was in my childhood home, a minimal woodcut of a bearded Walt Whitman with a triangle nose and series of dashes for a beard. It looked just like my dad. In my head the image was both God and Father, which were probably the same thing. On some level my work deals with this kind of elevated personage and its frailty.

I feel like this doesn’t exactly answer your question. Light is the constant character. Time and setting are frozen. And the body is reduced to its dumb, tangible parts so I can play with it like a Mr. Potato Head toy.

Thanks again for asking,
Nat

Find more of Nat Meade’s work at www.natmeade.com.

The edge of Gardner Lake in Connecticut.

I have been making watercolors for almost a year now.

I started by accident really.  It was around my birthday and my friends Susanna and her sister Jane invited me to come to their place in Connecticut for a few days to hang out.  My friend Linda came too.  Jane even made me an incredible strawberry shortcake with whipped cream for my birthday cake.  I finally began to relax after the grueling school year I had just had.  It was a wonderful time.

Linda and Jane were cooking and Susanna and I sat in the back yard under a huge tree.  There were stone steps down into the lake.  We brought watercolors and spread them out on the ground.  Susanna had a huge book of watercolors that she had been working on.  They were marvelous to see.  Very directly painted with some dry brush textures over luminous washes of color.  They captured the motif of the lake but also carried the weight of the air.  You could clearly see that the difference between the water and the air was just a question of a soft shift of color.

Susanna went for a swim and I started to make some paintings of my own.  I have to say that I never liked watercolor and even when I had to do it in school, I was not very good at it.  I had a very patient teacher, Donna Rae, who kept telling me that the medium was trying to teach me patience.  I didn’t know what she meant.

I soaked a bunch of paper in the lake.  I could see Susanna swimming back and forth and was taken with the way she belonged to two places at the same time.  The binaries kept flashing in my head: wet/dry, over/under, inside/outside and so on.  I also thought a lot about the way the water was all around her and separate from the same time.  I sat on the edge of the stone steps and put my legs in the water, watching the way the transparency of the water changed the color of my legs.  I pulled some paper out of the water and started to paint on the wet paper.

Susanna came out of the lake and sat with me.  We painted.  We talked.  Susanna has been a mentor to me since graduate school.  I have learned more from her than I could ever say.  That day, we talked about color and light.  We talked about loss and losing.  We talked about work and how to preserve your self and give to your students at the same time.  We worked.  She painted the motif in front her in luminous greys and humid yellows.  I thought about the movement of a body in the water and how to shift the sense of weight in transparent waves.  I remembered what Donna Rae was trying to teach me.  I didn’t realize I had learned.

I’ve made over 100 watercolors since that last time Susanna and I touched the water.  I was able to show about half of them at the Hudson Opera House earlier this year.   Because of its historic character, I wanted to have the pictures presented in a manner consistent with the venue.  I went on a scavenger/treasure hunt for a variety vintage frames.  I used some without glass so the viewer could experience the texture of the paper.  I also included 4 free standing paintings in the show.  One of them, you don’t deserve me was from my Samsøn show years ago, but the other three were new.  Their execution revealed some of the things that I had learned in the making of the water colors.

Anthony Palocci, Jr. Looking Up, 2015, oil on canvas, 60×96 inches. Studio view.

Steve Locke:  I think you are making some very challenging and gorgeous paintings, they were a high point of the last DeCordova Biennial. The ones that Lexi Lee Sullivan chose for that show married a haptic and almost brutal paint handling to elegant and bravura drawing. The result was spell binding. Like Vija Celmins, you managed to imbue everyday objects with an interior life. And at the same time, there was an assertion of modernist flatness and vivid surface that referenced Jasper Johns. Even the picture that Robert Moeller included in his pop up show, Yeah You Missed It, contained this dichotomy between the depicted and the felt.

My question is how does the idea of restraint inform your selection of imagery, your approach to color, and practice as a painter?

Anthony Palocci, Jr.:  It’s kind of funny for me to think about restraint. I haven’t thought about that in such depth until this question…

The first restraint I may have set up for myself was that whatever I painted must be manufactured. Whatever I paint cannot be organic or naturally occurring, it has to have been manipulated somehow. Whether it was built in a factory, sent through a meat grinder, or put through a mill, it’s got to be assembled by some form of fabrication. I think this focus stems from wanting to talk about people. I decided that I could say a lot more about people by painting images of the objects they created rather than depicting the people as themselves…

I used to paint a lot of people as people but there was a conflict of interest there because I didn’t want to talk about the individual. The individual was a very messy idea for me, something too complicated as one gets wrapped up in their story…Seeing someone in a painting, one identifies with that person as being of the same form and therefore empathizes with them; whoever they are, as they are depicted. At that point you’re too far into the painting for me…I needed to keep more of a distance between the painting and myself/the viewer/my audience…

By this “restraint” as you call it, I have boiled down my big ideas to the essential stuff I want to get at. By making a selection of a larger picture I eliminate everything else I don’t want to paint. I get distracted easily a
nd the world is such a vast place I need to discipline myself to hone in on one thing at a time. It’s really what keeps me grounded, to take one thing out of life and spend time with it. Even these objects have a story though, but it’s less literal than a person’s story because these objects are inanimate. They don’t have brains or blood. They have electricity, oil and motors. For now in my selection of imagery I have solved the first major problem I had as a painter, “What do I paint?”, and now I can get on with it…

Color is a whole other box of rocks. Color is so overwhelming to me now more so than ever because I am teaching color to students. Not only does one have to decide, “What do I paint?” but one must decide, “What Color do I use?” you could also ask, “How do I describe this?” or “Is it invented or observed?” and then there is the “Why then? How come?” to every answer you end up with…

I used to just grab any tube of paint that looked good at the time. Then that became problematic. Color is delicious and it is very easy to overindulge. Color is distracting because it is emotional. I can’t have color break my composure. For me it has always been a balance between the Venetians and the Florentines, Romanticism / Classicism, color / form, and painting / drawing. One can’t look at a form divorced from color. It’s a complicated issue for me.
My solution to this problem right now has been to work within the restraint of chromatic grays. And recently I have been drawn to objects composed of grays with parts made of plastics, metals and wires, so the shoe fits. I mostly work with either a warm or cool mixture of red and green with white added in for the shifts in value. That’s what goes on top. The under-painting is a whole other animal. I started using washy glazes of saturated colors as a ground so that the grays on top didn’t feel so dead (Nat Meade used to pick on my paintings in grad school because the grounds were left white, like the Impressionists). My under-paintings are color coordinated, differentiating the layers of spatial depth. Each painting is different but the most common use of the color is as follows:

Yellow = ground
Green = shadow
Red = light

Sometimes I mess with that, with blue, orange, and sometimes purple, just to see how the gray will behave on top. The same color gray will look different on top of a red than it does to a yellow or green, and in that, the same gray becomes a different gray. There are so many variations within these limits I feel like this is merely the starting point for me in my exploration of color. But for now, this is how I am making sense of things.

As far as my practice is concerned…it comes down to discipline again. I know I have to do certain things before I get down to business and waste a lot of material, so I have to come up with plans before I begin a painting. Every big painting starts off as a series of sketches. They can be formal or informal; on bar napkins or paper, whatever is available when I get an idea for a painting. From that point if I want more from that idea I make a small sized gouache painting and start thinking about how to conceive of the image and what to do with the paint. One thing leads to the next and I decide a size appropriate for the scale of the image and go. A lot of the time the larger paintings lead to smaller works as well. One part might strike me as worthy of more time or a separate canvas, so that spills out onto other surfaces. Keeping this part open for exploration helps me maintain an interest in any given subject. The deeper I can go into one thing, the more I can get out of it, the more I figure out, and all the while I am generating more paintings so I don’t feel like I’m wasting time on a big blow out.

Lately I’ve been returning to the image of the window fan I had hung in DeCordova. I wasn’t satisfied with my depiction of it. For a long time I would try and see how something was made, and then sort of internalize that form and make a painting of it. Now I am trying to keep it more true to what I am looking at, more observation and study of the thing itself. I’ve come to be more invested in the work as a result. Now I feel as though I am manufacturing these things. I observe, disassemble, and reassemble the objects. I’m also becoming interested in the situations one might find these objects in. The painting you cited in Yeah You Missed It is that same fan from the DeCordova but in one point perspective and with a window screen on top of it… The painting fools with perception. When you look at this painting you are looking at a small selection of a scene. Looking up from the ground outside an apartment to the second floor window where the fan is. I’ve cropped out everything but the space with the fan in it. Due to the perspective a lot of the object is obscured by the screen in front of it and the painting starts to take on different roles. It’s an illusion of space and it’s flat, like that Modernist thing you described. The tactility of the paint also helps with that. The painting asks a lot of questions at the same time and contradicts itself.

Installation view of Yeah, You Missed It, curated by Robert Moeller, at the Mills Gallery, Boston Center for the arts.
On wall: Palocci’s Looking Up. (Sculpture by Antoniadis and Stone.)

The restraints of this one object lead me to this strange selection of that scene and it is leading to even more. Restraints aren’t really restricting. I feel that restriction can be liberating, as it forces one into focus. It just takes a while to find that focus.

Talk soon,

Tony

Matthew Gamber, Blue Birds Exhibit, Gelatin silver print, 2010 from the series Any Color You Like

SL: I was a big fan of the work you had at the previous deCordova Biennial.  That work, titled Any Color You Like, did something so immediate and captivating that I am still thinking about it. You hear a lot of talk about audience engagement and interactivity in contemporary art but in all honestly, I am always wary of an artist that tries to involve me in their work.  The current vein of participatory/relational art seems oddly about spectacle and distraction (I think of Carsten Holler’s Experience at the New Museum).  But your work involved me in a visceral way.  I found myself really engaging and imagining what the situation posited in the photographs would be in “reality.”  I was determined to understand what had been lost in these images, namely, their color.  I got tremendously invested in what I thought I was seeing and what I was claiming and naming, so much so that I was completely dumbstruck that someone else had a completely different understanding of what was being imaged.  I could not recall the last time an artwork sparked this kind of internal and external disagreement about what it clearly pictured.  I remember thinking that I was more involved with what I was looking at than I had been in a long time.  It was really satisfying.

The current work requires that same attention from me.  Presented with all of photography’s indexical power, the photos seem to be empirical, almost like data.  But in the looking they unravel and unfold into a larger, less stable proposition.  They use presence AND absence to do this and that leads me to my question:

How do the poetics of loss, the nature of objects, and implications of nostalgia inform your photographic practice?

MG:  When someone asks me what my photography is, my best (and most unsure) answer is academic photography. My interest lies in trying to understand how camera technology led to certain conventions in seeing—a history of photographic methodologies. The best way for me to participate in this discussion is to make artwork that probes these conventions through a series of orthodox methods (utilizing processes faithfully, but in way that would be incorrect).

A black-and-white photograph is a signifier of data, information, and history (including mystery and drama). It is also a signifier of the past, and more potently, a site for nostalgia. Marshall McLuhan described nostalgia as a loss of identity—defining the present as reenactment of past forms. Are notions of photographic truth fueled by uncertainty within the present tense? Is it possible to create a black-and-white photograph today whose value is not based in latent nostalgia?

The photographs of Any Color You Like require interaction with a viewer’s own expectations. Is it possible to describe color verbally? Does it require prior knowledge of color to be able to describe it? These images involve language to reconcile the missing content within the pictures. The desire for color creates vacuum in which one seeks to restore any of the possible colors missing in the photographs. Historical color is imaginary.

Matthew Gamber’s work is on view in a two-person exhibition at the Hagedorn Foundation Gallery, in Atlanta, Georgia.  The show, also featuring Peter Bahouth, is called New Takes and is on view from November 13, 2014–January 10, 2015.  

Halo, 2002, oil on panel, 16 x 16 inches

Like a lot of artists, particularly painters, I’ve made my share of self-portraits.  I did these paintings to teach myself about myself, to mark time, to solve a painting problem, a variety of reasons.  Not all of them are art, but the ones that are have a special place in my practice.  I look at those pictures and I can think back to the moments when they were painted.  In fact, I think they contain the haptic trace of my emotional life.  Some of them, many of them in fact, I have destroyed.  Sometimes I’ve done this because they were failures as paintings and sometimes I had to get rid of them because it was enough that I knew that I painted them.  I have some photos of these paintings, but the objects themselves are gone.  Even though I am a painter, it is very hard for me to make a painting.  It’s expensive in a variety of ways.

So when I got contacted to be in a self-portrait show, I was kind of skeptical about doing it.  Like I said, I am a painter but I am not someone for whom the self-portrait is a key part of my practice.  The other artists in the show included Anne Harris and Susanna Coffey, both of whom I know and the latter is a dear, close friend.  There was also Maud Morgan and the divine Gregory Gillespie.  For that reason alone I wanted to do the show.  Coffey has had a profound impression on my work.  Gillespie, with his relentless reworking and extensive understanding of surface and material has as well.  I was thrilled that some of my work would be in consideration with these giants.

I have a self-portrait project Circumference that I offered as my contribution but the curator was interested in paintings only.  (Looking backward I also think that the underlying content in the work was, shall we say, difficult for the curator.) I have three self-portaits from a very difficult time that are very precious to me.  I struggled with them in the making and there were a lot of difficulties that I resolved in the work, and they bear that out in the making.  I talked to Julia Lavigne, the Associate Director at Samsøñ about them and she felt like it would be a good thing to have them in the dialogue created in the context of the show, which was called Self-Examination through Portraiture.  I trust her judgment.  The largest painting of the three, Self-Portrait at Skowhegan was on uncradled panel exactly the way it was painted.  In order to have it exhibition ready, I had it framed with a gorgeous float frame to accentuate the irregular edges of the picture.  (The folks at PSG Framing in Somerville did an amazing job.)

They were painted on panel and they are hard-won.  I discovered things about scraping and sanding and allowing the surface to show in the picture that are basic tools in my practice today.  My show at ICA Boston there is no one left to blame includes paintings that were begun at the same time as the self-portraits and they contain all of the lessons I learned from making these pictures.

Once I agreed to the show, I was informed that there would be a catalog for the show as well.  I was also told that all the artists were writing statements.  I wasn’t really interested in making statements about the work and said as much and the gallery provided them with a general statement about my practice.  Also, since this was for a text that was going to be published, I really balked at being asked to write something for publication without being paid for it.  I was asked multiple times and advised that it could be short.  So I eventually relented.

Here’s my statement for the show:

Self-portraiture is a form of self-location. It is a means to understand where I am physically and emotionally, in addition to being a way to explore formal issues and materials.
I made these paintings at a time when a lot of things were coming apart. There was the tremendous loss of the AIDS epidemic, my mother’s decline, and my own constant fight to have an identity as an artist. I made these paintings to prove that I could do them. I wanted to make a record of myself, my time, and my likeness knowing that it would change but knowing that the paintings would hold the memory of the moment and would be a truer record than any other thing I could access.
I wanted to prove that I existed in the context of art. The most concrete way I could do that was to paint myself into history and into being.

Steve Locke, Boston Massachusetts

I sent the statement and Julia and Camilø Álvårez handled the transport of the work to the venue.  They managed the entire process, consignment agreements, photos of the work and all that things that they do all the time for the artists they support.

I got an invitation to the opening and I was thinking it would be fun to go if Anne and Susanna were there.  I had seen Susanna earlier in the year and started doing watercolors with her at her family house in Connecticut (which led to an exciting new body of work).  Unfortunately, neither of them could get to the opening and I figured I would still go alone.  It was then that the curator contacted me about giving a talk about my work at the opening.

I got this email:

On Oct 8, 2014, at 10:09 AM, Audrey Pepper <audreypepper@mac.com> wrote:

Hi Steve,

Everything is in place. The catalog is at the printer, plans for picking up the work are in place.

I am checking in regarding the talk that will take place during the reception on Thursday, October 16th. The reception is 5 – 7 p.m. and the talk/discussion will probably be 5:30 – 6:30. I hope that this still works for you. Rick Fox will also be participating. I will be introducing the exhibit and then introducing you and Rick. There will be time for you to show images of your work and considering the theme of the show, it would be interesting to hear about your larger body of work and how the self-portraits play into it. I am asking the same of Rick Fox. There will also be a chance for there to be a Q & A.

I am thrilled to have your work in the exhibit and look forward to meeting you.

Best,
Audrey

I replied that I had the opening on my calendar, but I had no idea that there was a talk.  The curator then said that she had discussed the talk with Julia (who told the curator that she would have to ask me directly) and she thought I was on board.  And I certainly did not know that there was a talk that would include me showing images of my work and a discussion of my “larger body of work” and doing a Q and A.  All of this during the opening of the exhibition.  So it’s not an opening for me, it’s an artist’s talk and a Q and A.  And there was no compensation for my time or travel offered. So I made the work, framed it, supplied a text, my gallery arranged consignment and photos, and in addition, I am supposed to provide my time and discuss my work.

For free.

I said as much in my reply:

On Oct 8, 2014, at 11:12 AM, Steve Locke wrote:

Hi Audrey,
I apologize. I didn’t realize that I was being asked to speak about my work and my studio practice. I thought that contributing the work and the text for the catalog was all. I guess I misunderstood.
I am sorry, but I am not able to contribute my time to the talk.

S

I got an apology for the “lack of clarity in communication” and a hope that I would come to the opening.  I didn’t go.

Later, Julia did a follow up with the curator.  She asked about the catalog and also about the response to the show.  She got this message in return:

Hi Julie (sic),

I am waiting for the photos of the installation from Debbie. You will see that we only hung the 2 paintings that were in good shape. I don’t know if Debbie has been in touch with you regarding the damaged painting. I do know that you responded to her concerned email, the day of the installation, stating that one of the paintings had a large chip of paint off of the front surface of the painting. I saw the photo that you sent back in response, confirming that you knew of the clearly damaged surface. I must say that I was shocked and disturbed that a painting would be sent out in that condition, and that you thought that we would include it in the exhibit.
I was down in your neck of the woods for a couple of hours, a week or so ago, and although your lights were on, the door was locked. I had the catalogs with me at that time. I will mail a couple to you.
As far as interest in Steve’s work, I was there for the reception and haven’t been back since. I know that they get a certain flow through the gallery, but the exhibits are mostly for the benefit of the students. Debbie is the best to answer your question regarding interest in his work and responses by students and faculty. I know that they used the exhibit as material for classwork/papers/research.
These exhibits go by so quickly. This one ends this Saturday. I am making arrangements with Matt Clark to return the paintings to the gallery the beginning of next week. Does this work for you?

Best,
Audrey

Night, 2002, oil on panel, 16 x 16 inches

In fact, Julia had been contacted about “damage” to the paintings. She thought it strange and assured the curator that there was no “damage” to the works; that they were how I intended them to be.  Apparently, the curator knows what my work is supposed to look like, (which works are in “good shape”) more that I or the people who have represented me for years.  In fact, Halo, has a small mark where I scratched to the ground of the picture to bring a dot of light to the surface. She also saw fit to reprimand the standards and qualities of the staff and owner of Samsøñ.  To that end, Camilo Alvarez sent a reply:

From: Camilo Alvarez [mailto:kmilo@samsonprojects.com]
Sent: Tuesday, November 11, 2014 3:20 PM
To: Audrey Pepper
Cc: Julia Lavigne; Disston, Deborah
Subject: Re: image

Audrey,

My Assistant Director’s name is Julia.

These paintings belong to the artist’s private collection. They are in the condition the artist and I are completely comfortable in exhibiting.
They would never have been released if we didn’t believe they deserved to be seen. Our attention to detail with all the unique works that come through us is thorough.
These works are not ‘damaged’. I would say more ‘damage’ has been made to those who have now been unable to see them.
We look forward to receiving the catalogs, installation images and works. Please note we are open Tuesday to Saturday from 11 to 6PM.

Best,

Camilø Álvårez
Owner/Director/Curator/Preparator

This is really the point where I found out about any of this.  Camilo and Julia worked hard to insulate me from this insulting behavior but it just got to a point where I had to be included in the discussion.  Especially after the Director of the gallery sent Camilo this email:

On Nov 11, 2014, at 3:46 PM, “Disston, Deborah” <D.Disston@snhu.edu> wrote:

Camilo, I think the tone of your email is unnecessary. It was our decision to not show the large painting by Steve because it gave the appearance of being damaged and we did not want to be perceived as poor stewards of our art exhibitions and/or collections. Steve’s reputation and work has in no way shape or form been damaged. As you recall we have exhibited his work in a group exhibition Traversing Gender for which he happily came to give an artist talk. We have happily included his work in our catalog and as Audrey pointed out she was hand delivering them to your gallery and the gallery was locked during your office hours. We all take pride in our work and we should all be respected equally for those efforts. We will be de-installing our exhibit on Sunday and arrangements are being made with the art shipper. I will mail you catalogs and email you installation images. Until then, let’s continue doing the good work we all do and give each other support. – Debbie

Self Portrait at Skowhegan, 2002, 20 x 24, oil on panel with floating frame

Apparently, all of us needing to be respected for our efforts doesn’t apply to me or my vision for my own work.  And again, someone really feels the need to reprimand an adult who has worked in contemporary art venues for his entire career about how an artist’s work should appear – an artist whom he has represented for over 7 years.  And as far as my reputation is concerned, well, I’ll let Camilo address that:

Deborah,

I thought Audrey’s tone was unnecessary as well. I hope you agree. I wonder why I was admonished for expressing and defending my viewpoint?

I am never worried about perceptions. I think if you had shown the painting and someone remarked about its perceived ‘damage’, it could have been a teachable moment about the artist’s process. Steve and I spoke about that very work and its moments and the fact that there is no such thing as perfection. Considering it is a self portrait, the correlation of ‘damage’ upon the painting by the artist makes it art. Think: Dorian Gray. The reflection of time in a painting, with the artist…

I also didn’t mention anything about Steve’s reputation. The inference was that I (or the artist) was being irresponsible by unleashing a ‘damaged’ painting into the world was an affront to my responsibility.
Thus it was more about my reputation being sullied. It seems to me more worry was felt about the perception of your respective reputations in fact by not exhibiting this work.

It is impossible to respect all equally. Some do more than others. I do a lot. I’ve been told I do good, sometimes great work. I have also been told I support great work and whenever anyone questions the inverse, you can expect to hear from me about it.

Best to you and yours,

Camilø Álvårez
Owner/Director/Curator/Preparator

You can see why I love him so much.

I found out about all this as I was driving to get groceries.  I saw the email string and had to pull over to a parking lot to get a hold of myself.  I am used to being insulted about my work.  I am used to being misunderstood.  I am not used to not being taken seriously as an artist and I do not appreciate being told that the decisions I make about presenting the work I make are not art, or worse that they are “damage” or mistakes, or evidence of me not caring about my work, the venue, or the viewers.  This has the weight of a gutter insult to me.  Especially in light of the way this whole thing has been handled.

Camilo calmed me down and I was able to drive the rest of the way home.  He told me to forget the whole thing.  I just cannot.  I sent the following to the Director and the Curator:

Debbie and Audrey,

I am really at a loss to understand the events that have taken place around this show and my work in it. I have learned late that one of the works I sent at your request (Self-portrait at Skowhegan) was not exhibited because it was perceived by the two of you to be damaged. I cannot believe that you think that I would send a damaged work for exhibition. In fact, I had the painting framed at considerable expense to HIGHLIGHT the irregularity of the edge of the support and the difficulty in layering the painting’s surface. This show was supposed to be ABOUT self-examination and that guides every aspect of my practice. Had you seen there is no one left to blame at ICA Boston, you would know that the surfaces and edges of my paintings often show the stresses and decisions that happen in creating a picture. In a show that contains Gillespie (who famously reworked and abraded the surfaces of his pictures) I find it hard to believe that you could not or would not see my work as part of that conversation. I cannot believe that I am so disregarded as a maker that my choices in the way I make my work are questioned and dismissed because of the way they may look to viewers.

My work is supported by the statement I wrote for the catalog.

Camilo Alvarez has known me and my work since 2002 and he and his staff, particularly Julia Lavigne, are deeply knowledgeable about my practice and my ideas. A simple call about the situation would have allowed them or me to educate you about the pictures I make. My “reputation” and my career are in a great amount due to his belief and support of my vision and my work. I found Audrey’s and your messages to Julia and to him very sad. They really do not deserve to be addressed as though they do not understand the work of exhibiting and contextualizing works of art.

Lastly, I was asked to contribute a text to a catalog, for free. I framed and prepared the work for exhibition at no cost to you. And I was put forward to give a public talk about my work under the guise of coming to an opening with no compensation for my time in speaking about my work or my travel. I loved coming out to SNHU and talking with students; it’s part of my life as an educator. But speaking at an opening or giving a talk about my work and my practice with images is not something that any artist would be asked to do for free. I am left with the feeling that my refusal to participate in the talk was the reason for the removal of my work.

After the wonderful experience of participating in TRAVERSING GENDER I am completely shocked and frankly, hurt, at the way my work and the people who work so hard on my behalf have been considered.

I advised my friends Anne and Susanna about this.  I feel a little bit better after getting this all out.  It boggles my mind that in 2014, this is the way that people make determinations about their audience, the people with whom they work, and what they think deserves to be seen.  It is difficult to bear that a  work I made to prove something to my self and to the world was hidden from view because people could not understand the difference between intention and their own ideas of art.

Luc Tuymans, Gaskamer (Gas Chamber) 1986

 One of the greatest works of art of the 20th Century is Luc Tuymans’s Gaskamer (Gas Chamber). In addition to being an image yanked from one of the unspeakable horrors of the murder of European Jewry it is a painting that refuses to obey the conventions of paintings of history.  It’s a modest size instead of being epic.  It is painted in tonal neutrals instead of a rich palette of color.  It is on a warped and angled stretcher that prevents it from being a regular rectangle and instead presents an uncomfortable image in a new form.  This is because of Tuymans’s choices, both formally and conceptually.  I can imagine the curator and director of this exhibition keeping this painting from view because to show it would make people think badly of them.  I think badly of them because they do not understand that art is not about comfort or ease.  It provokes a public conversation.  It’s sad that they do not trust themselves or their viewers enough to ask the question, “Why did the artist do that?  What are they saying to me?”

In light of all this, I got another email from the director of the space.  You would think that I made all of this clear, but apparently, I still don’t know what I am talking about when it comes to my own work:

Dear Steve and Camilo,First I want to preface that I know you both are committed to your profession and do great work. I have always admired the verve with which you engage in the arts and this is one of many reasons we invited you to be a part of our exhibit on self-portraiture.

I believe there are some significant misunderstandings here which I would like to attempt to clear up. First, “Self-Portrait at Skowhegan: is included in the exhibit, It was “Halo” which we chose not to exhibit because there was a significant white spot (chipped paint)on the surface. I contacted Julia the minute I noticed this to let her know of the condition. She in turn sent me an image showing that there was a chip of paint missing. We were not provided with the explanation that such a thing was intentional. Audrey and I discussed what we wanted to do and chose to not include “Halo” .

Here are a few thoughts about your comments about compensation.

It has been our practice at the McIninch Art Gallery to ask our exhibiting artists to speak at our opening reception, to provide bios, artist statements. I do not pay a stipend for that. If you were a guest speaker and not an exhibiting artist, I would. Why is this? Out of our incredibly small budget, we pay for advertising, marketing materials, the cost of printing catalogs, art shipping, insurance, installation costs, staffing, curatorial fees, hospitality costs, taking the artist to dinner after the event. And then there is the in-kind cost of time spent working with professors and providing them with didactic materials so that they can utilize the exhibit in their curricular activities, which is all the time. In exchange for all of these expenditures, I feel that it is fair to ask the artist to speak at an opening reception. It is entirely your prerogative to disagree and chose not to participate.

We are very proud of the exhibit. There is still time to see it. The show runs through Saturday.

The art will be returned next week. I will be forwarding installation shots and more catalogs.

Debbie

Her initial message states that the “large painting” was not shown.  At 20-by-24 inches, Self-Portrait at Skowhegan is the largest work.  But now she says that painting was shown and Halo was not.  So truly, I really have no faith in anything about this at this point.  Listen, if you don’t want to show the work, fine.  I don’t really care.  Just don’t tell me that my work is damaged and don’t be “shocked and disturbed” that a contemporary art work might try to trouble conventional standards of art.  If this is so upsetting, maybe the curatorial career choice is a bad one.

So even though Julia sent them a photo saying that she knew about the spot on the painting and that it was intentional, they still decided it was not.   It was also good to see where the gallery’s priorities are; they have so many expenses that their operation sort of requires the artist to work for a meal.   And clearly, if they were so concerned why didn’t they just send the piece back to me?  Why hold on to it, not show it, not inform me that they were not showing it, and then tell me reprimand me and Samsøñ for sending it?  I am deeply confused and feel silly explaining this over and over again to them.  I contacted my two friends who were in the show and let them know how ridiculously unprofessional this whole thing has turned out to be.  I found out that one of them hadn’t even been invited to the opening and that neither of them had received the catalog. If I was to go out to see this show at this point, it would be to take my work off the walls.

Deborah,

What you referred to as chipped paint on the surface is called a mark. I put the mark on the painting. It’s not an accident, it’s not damaged, it’s not “chipped.” Julia made this clear to you. It would have been better if you let me know you were choosing not to include the work. That would’ve given me the opportunity to take all of my work out of the show. My question to you is this: why do you assume that I do not know what I’m doing as an artist and that I don’t know how I want my paintings to be seen?

Samsøñ provided you with my bio, my CV, and a general statement about my work. They also provided at no cost to you Hi-Rez images of the work for publication.I was asked to craft a special statement for this exhibition. Since as you probably know language is part of my practice as an artist, this is also artwork. Since this was to be published as a document in a catalog for the exhibition, it would be normal for an artist to be compensated for a contribution to a publication.

Lastly, there is a difference between speaking to someone at an opening and being required to provide a slide talk with images and an overview of one’s work. As I said, I enjoyed talking with students during Traversing Gender. That is a very different situation.

Joe Biden famously said, “if you want me to know what you value, show me your budget.” Thanks for making your priorities clearer for me.

I’ve advised my colleagues Anne Harris and Susanna Coffey about this unfortunate situation.

If artists are only valued for their ability to entertain, then they are not valued at all.  In this case, the appearances were more important that the message of the works.  Instead of seeing the artist who poses a question (“Why is that white spot there?  Oh wow, it really makes it seem like it’s a piece of dust illuminated by the light, doesn’t it?) the artist is an irresponsible person who sends out damaged work and needs his “reputation” maintained.  Again, this entire thing has left me very sad.  I cannot wait to get my paintings back from this show.

Entrance to Robert Gober’s mid-career retrospective at MoMA

I loved the MoMA show and I had a deep and visceral reaction to it. I actually began to cry in the galleries. This surprised me a great deal, mostly because I know the work and I sort of knew what to expect. It is overwhelming for me to think about the ideas and reactions I have to the work and to the entire show, which I think is beautifully installed.

The first time I saw a Gober installation was the work he had at Dia in 1993 and I confess, I actually had no idea that it was fabricated artwork. As I walked through the same piece at MoMA, I became acutely aware of all of the things that I missed when I saw the piece all those years ago.

It’s impossible for me to separate the imagery in Gober’s work from the massive loss of life to AIDS and how that is manifested on the body. When I walked into the re-creations of the installations from Dia and also the installation from the Jeu de Paume, this was manifestly present. The landscape as a prison, the promise of healing waters, the denial of the intact body, and poisons for the elimination of pests all brought this into overwhelming focus for me.

– See more at: http://www.artcritical.com/2014/11/12/steve-locke-on-robert-gober/

A passer-by considers my untitled project at Dlectricity 2014

I want to say thank you to Alivia Zivich and DLECTRICITY 2014 for allowing me to present at this year’s festival.  I did an untitled project with three neons installed on historic Woodward Avenue in Detroit.  Here’s my statement about the work:

A large part of my practice as a painter involves language. My use of neon as an artist is greatly influenced by growing up in Highland Park in view of the YELLOW PAGES and HOSTESS signs of old Detroit. These three works specifically address politics, history, and relationships. Putting these personal thoughts in an historical form used specifically for mass communication makes them public, and public admissions are rare in our current political moment. By manifesting the loss of an icon of a critical and engaged press; the affirmation of Detroit as a site of learning, and dismissing blame as an sustainable position, my work in light creates sites of public consideration of our shared personal and political consciousness.

It was a great opportunity to revisit my hometown with my work and to make some wonderful new friends.  For instance:

Alivia Zivich is a terrific artist and curator.  She runs the space What Pipeline in Southwest Detroit.

Ingrid LaFleur is the mastermind that created Maison LaFleur.  She just got back from Johannesburg doing a project and is now putting together DETROIT IS AFROTOPIA.

Trinosophes has great bands and great coffee and great folks.  They hosted my Untitled (I MISS PETER JENNINGS) before Dlectricity.  Stop in and hang with THE ELECTRIFYING MOJO.

Jonathan Rajewski is making some tough, gorgeous paintings in Hamtramck.

I got a beautiful drawing from the force of nature that is Bailey Scieszka.

Zeb Smith, who looked after me and my show at MOCAD took me for probably the best cup of pour over coffee I’ve ever had at Astro Coffee.  A great place in the shadow of the Detroit Train Station and next to the amazing Slows Bar BQ.  (NB.  Zeb built the doors for Slows.  The guy’s freaking amazing.)

Adrian Pittman has a master plan to put Detroit back on the physical, mental, and digital maps of the world.  And the brother has better shoes than me.  For real.

I am hoping to go back to Detroit for a few weeks this spring if not sooner.  I’ve got something up my sleeve and I hope it works out.