intro:
Spring 2008 Issue
When Irreversible first talked to us about this collaboration, Editor Noor Blazekovic said "I want New York." - her vision was a window on the artist working in NYC trying to establish a place in the sun, with the stakes so high and so many of us here. We decided the best way to do that was to entice a few artists like ourselves to sit with us at our favorite place in the Chelsea Gallery District, Naima, and share thoughts and ideas. Here is what, literally and figuratively, they brought to the table...
Being here...
So many galleries in NY - some 300 here in Chelsea alone. And so much buzz about artists - the ones who make a lot of money, do something outrageous, do something outrageous and get a lot of money for it. The media revels in the tragedies of early death and unhappiness, and the travesties of the art scene's PT Barnum types latest escapades, usually involving something gross and/or bizarre. But look at how many active, contemporary artists it takes to fill all these galleries with solo and group exhibitions month after month - it's the tip of the iceberg.so, Who are the rest? Artists like us, making the right moves on the road to establishing themselves firmly, but still "working it" to get there.
L to R - Linda DiGusta, Yoichiro Yoda, Mark Wiener, Chris Twomey, Paul Seftel
Who Are Those Guys?
Chris Twomey: For me, art is communication, what I really try to do is create a visible form for my ideas - my ideas come first. I'm hoping it resonates and is communicated to the person who is looking at it. I got my MFA from Pratt Institute... I was building sets, shooting pixelated figures ...what I ended up doing was moving into film for 10 years.
At that point, I had to shoot in South Carolina and I had just had my first child. I was
nursing,the plane was late, I came home and my daughter didn't recognize me, she was 6 months old. That's when I went back to my art. I had my first show in 1999, it all worked out really well.
You've got to listen to these signals that life gives you. I belong to Art Science Collaborations - my work has been based on DNA to pursue themes of identity, especially a woman's - that's who I am, I can't pretend to be otherwise.
Yoichiro Yoda: For subject matter I used the theatres of 42nd street at Times Square, old hotels, bars, New York themes - fading New York themes now - so much is being taken away...I came across this theme by chance on a bus trip from Tyler School of Art where I got my BFA, the driver made a mistake and went through 42nd st ... it was still kind of seedy.
I remembered the old theatres there, how great they used to be. I did some research, went back a couple of times, and it strangely felt like my real home. I started painting and researching the old theatres, They were shuttered and condemned , but eventually I got complete access, I took photos, started working on what came to be called "The Last Days of 42nd Street."
I've started putting silent film characters into the painting, but all in keeping with my theme of trying to preserve the old buildings. My current projects include more theatres and the slated-for-demolition Hotel Pennsylvania.
Paul Seftel: I'm an artist as long as I can remember, born and raised in London, my mother's a New Yorker..I'm a painter, I work with textures,tones, the subtleties and depth of mixed media, I'm painting ferociously at the moment, the deeper I go into it, the more I discover.
Within a week of coming to NY last year, I had 2 6x6 foot pieces on the wall in a gallery in Soho.
Sometimes I'm more like an art handler that an artist, moving pieces around but, slowly, slowly, pieces are selling, reputation is building.
Mark Wiener (R40 Editor-n Chief): I've been an artist in NYC about 30 years. For the last three Resolve40 has drawn me into the center of the art world - getting to know artists and galleries.
The most important quality of this experience for me is to being open to learning from my life in the art community and my environment - that's what makes truthful art, which the artist's goal, my goal. Only with that can you find your own success.
As for work in the studio - I work on the Upper East Side because I realize it's still a such vital art district, as well as historic, and it's nice to walk over to the Met for inspiration. I've been here doing my thing there and being successful at it
Linda DiGusta (Exec. Editor, R40): I trained as a theatrical designer and director -at Hunter College as well as the Art Students League. Since I graduated I've been in the arts - mainly designing and performing - in NYC, always a writer as well, Since we began Resolve40, writing about visual art, I've committed to creating more of it myself, first assemblage and text art - the literary side of my personality.
Two years ago I started drawing again, and it's kind of taken off. Recently my work was in a group show at the Housatonic Museum of Art - I guess the drawing is the direction I'm being "drawn" in. Having been an artist in NY all along, I'm also now an artist in New York for the first time in terms of, oh, I'm an artist, they're a gallery I have made all these objects so what do I do now? It's an interesting perspective to be jumping into something I've been writing about for 3 years.
Art & The City
PS: There's definitely an opportunity for exposure in New York unlike any place else. I live in Williamsburg, the most bohemian place I've ever lived, a nice combination of industrial buildings, coffee shops and people who don't shave every day. Apparently everybody's an artist, but I don't actually meet them at random.
YY: I've been living in the SoHo area since 1990, I live with my folks, they're both artists, in New York since the 60's - I was born in Japan.
I've always been drawn to certain experienced realities the city has - industrial buildings - that's something I grew up with. but the landscape I knew when I was a kid doesn't exist any more every day I see something else they're tearing down, I'm concerned. But that fuels my work - there's good and bad, I guess…New York has always been changing, but it could maybe slow down a little bit.
PS: I believe in what Rockefeller did in NY, I've been coming to New York since I was 8 yrs old, and I always noticed the details. If it wasn't for Rockefeller, New York would not be as artful a place as it is, the detail on the buildings, there's nothing like it.
YY: I think we a still need to be in that mentality.
PS: I think so too. Grand Central , the restored ceiling, is one of the greatest things I have ever seen.
LD: Public art in the subway does it for me, ever since I saw a Keith Haring on the wall when I was in school. I always touch Elizabeth Murray's mosaic at 59th, I thought I was the only one. Last week I walked around the Otterness installation at 14th Street, it energized me to watch the people deal with his funny little guys all over the place - they touch them, stroke them , they really relate.
MW: I always draw on the #6 train on my long trip from 78th and Lexington to Canal Street for supplies. People look, sometimes they ask me something - even get in touch later, sometimes they just keep on watching the whole time.
Relationships are the value of being in New York.
CT: I really love the people, the buildings are great, but for me the people are the exciting part. I grew up moving every 2 years, for me the city is about connection and meeting people, really diverse people. When I moved, it was always me acclimatizing to different places, meeting people, New York fuels that for me, so many layers and levels and arenas where you can connect…The first art group I belonged to met down in a Greek diner in the morning, by knowing them I would meet other people - it propels itself forward.
PS: It's a good place to plant seeds, let them grow, a fantastic place to be influenced and part of the mix - in a few years I will be able to pick up and have a studio wherever I want.
CT: You have the cooperation of the community of curators, artists, and writers, you can't make your art in a vacuum, it's a whole relationship with where you are in time and what people are interested in and what your peer group is doing. That whole idea of being all alone - you're out of it when you do that. We all bounce ideas off each other, even if we're not intentionally doing it.
LD: I make very solitary quiet art, still life drawings, and it's not about not being in the world, I'm reacting to it. It's a dialectic.
PS: I agree, I lived in a tee pee in the desert...it's about a perspective. If I wasn't there then I wouldn't be in NY now…you have this germination period where it comes together, then you can share.
MW: NYC is the largest small town in the world, you can meet everybody or nobody. You can walk out of your studio and see nothing, or you can see this incredible opportunity. You're in NY, you can hang in the MoMA, the Met or the Whitney and all you have to do is focus and create and the way will find you. The opportunities are larger then life.
If big scares you, you have to get that it's really just the same as small, it's a matter of standing tall and facing it...it being the art world. You make it as big as you want it to be.
What's the "word"?
MW Is it necessary to have a narrative around the works?
YY: I've always been pretty clear about one thing - the work is narrative, it represents my own personal story that I'm telling and also has another purpose of documenting - every day something is different, change not just of landscapes but of attitudes, everything...what I want people to feel or see in my work is something to make them think about what we do in New York, hopefully take care of what we have, like the old hotels and theatres and things like that, not just get rid of them hastily. It's something very important to me and something I'll continue doing.
MW: Young artists are educated to write about what they're doing, then create their visual space in the spirit of their writing, this is the way they teach people. There are more words than visual content - it's necessary to have a big block of type next to something so that somebody can understand the visuals.
LD: Larry Poons calls that "invisible art." I tend to agree, visual art has to be visual.
PS: You need the visual understanding, but once the piece draws you in and you want to understand it mentally, that's where the words come in…If the words give the piece validity, forget about it! First, engage my soul with the piece, then let me be intrigued by your words.
CT: Words can enrich something, open up more windows. I think it’s a great thing if the words enrich, if the words over-explain and illustrate and basically aren’t related to what you're looking at, then it’s a complete waste of time.
LD: As a writer, I'm sometimes put off by the amount of explanation, feel like it's forcing one interpretation, which by definition won't be the truth, because truth always has counterpoints and contradictions. There's nothing left to ponder, or sometimes even observe. Besides, the idea is to really get other people to write about you, isn't it?
CT: That's what creates careers, people writing about art. New York is still very much a main player in terms of the amount of critics who are here, the amount of reviewers, the magazines.
PS - Artists are historically ahead of the curve, they're the ones that define the times, they're not being defined by the curators...
CT: Depends who is writing about it. Curators - what is the current theory? All that goes on and on. As an artist, you have to dodge the bullets. Art has elements of fashion...what comes around...now we're seeing so much painting, before if you painted, you had to be in the closet. Maybe it's your time now, mine will be later…
LD: As long as you don't change what you're doing to catch it, because then you miss it entirely.
CT: I'm doing work that's very representative of what its like to be a woman artist with children -this new series about the double x chromosome, the idea that the strength of this woman carries on the DNA for the future - its on aluminum foil, a really humble material, That's my subject matter, you don't see it, you haven't seen it, it's not something many people relate to, but in some ways I feel like its time has come, and some one's got to put it out on the table.
MW: It all comes down to readiness.
Everyone at this table is ready, New York.
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