At the BWA City Gallery in Bydgoszcz (which has the most poignant introduction of any art gallery I’ve seen so far: “WHAT”), the Polygonum exhibition which opens on October 14th to showcase the Polish region’s visual talents has some tasty discoveries.

“Movemental” by Tomasz Dobiszewski does look a little like a furniture catalogue. And yet there is something wrong with this catalogue. It does not clarify, it does not simplify, but multiplies, undoes the tight order of things. It lets the picture breathe, opens it up, as if it was obvious: the reverse is necessary, the negative, the outline – everything our gaze seems to take for granted. Dobiszewski adds nothing, he just cuts out and moves,allowing the rhythms to become juicier through the absurd joy of things fitting like in a reverse puzzle. Do things become undone, this way, or are they put more clearly into their necessity? After all, this is the space for the space this is.

Another tasty moment requires distance.
Evidently, it’s not about the painting. But the painting seems an important introduction (and the floor, and the floor). This creature, to the right (unfortunately I didn’t write down the name or author), stands as its own double. It should not be approached (really, definitely, in cases like this I understand why beauty needs distance). As any mirage, it is only what it seems, a reflection, a game of angles, a line and a line and a line. It rings a bell, and another, and I wonder, is there a way of keeping it there, of not getting closer, of remaining within the illusion that there is something beyond, just a little more plenty.

The etude by Gyorgy Ligeti I would like you to pay attention to is the second one. It starts at 2′15″.
Here is what a competent source has to say about the work:

The third etude, “Touches bloquees” (“Blocked Keys”), uses the same technique that first appeared in “Selbstportrait,” the second of the Three Pieces for Two Pianos. Certain keys are held down silently with one hand while the other hand plays a very fast chromatic line on and around the blocked keys, which of course do not sound. The result is a complicated rhythmic pattern that gives the music a somewhat mechanical quality. At first the silent gaps are all the duration of a single eighth, but eventually the gaps are two eighths, then three, and continue to increase in length until the texture becomes increasingly sparse. Again, this etude is about the creation of illusion; we see a continuous pattern of eighth notes on the page, but what results in performance are quirky rhythmic patterns that are not discernible to the eye and would be all but impossible to notate in a more traditional fashion to achieve the desired effect.

Actually, it wasn’t so much about the listening for me. What put me in a state of awe was the seeing. It is the clear struggle between the hands, the tension between the immobile one and the one that runs crazily above it or under it. Also, the tension of the one that is supposed to stay immobile, simply blocking some keys, but cannot resist the opportunity and spurts out sounds now and again, as if to underline it has total power. And then they switch. And we hear it, we hear this body negiation, we hear it once we see it, once we understand the game, it becomes obvious.
The music becomes obvious. Because it’s about music, right?
And the soldier-fingers, constantly attempting to design the space through movement. A movement whose purpose is not something else – like a sound – is a dance. If you ever needed proof, here is one.

I enjoy looking through artist studios so much that I decided to make it a semi-regular thing. So if you have a few photos of your art studio or workspace and would like to share them, please send them to me.

Make sure the images are under 1mb in size as they don’t have to be MASSIVE and my inbox clogs up. Include a short paragraph about your space if you wish and your website address if you have one. Artist studios from all creative people are welcome and it doesn’t have to be a beautiful working space.. it just has to work for you.

Here’s the studios so far (listed alphabetically so that my studio is conveniently placed at the top..lol)

Dion Archibald’s Painting Studio – Working space of an Australian artist.
Jessica Burko’s Artist Studio – Mixed media artist based in Boston, MA, USA.
Gail Sauter’s Painting Studio – American painter working in Maine, USA.

I’ll add to the list as artists send them in (I have three other studios to add at the moment)

Combine air, space, track lighting, concrete, glass, metal, a cool king-size bed to rest your sleepy head and you’re totally there.

You’ve got what may or may not be your typical hip hotel. However, as I write these oh so urbane words, I’m not in your run of the mill sleek abode. I’m taking up pricy space in this totally hip place.
21C.
My trip here actually began a couple of years ago when I first heard about it. “When I finally decide to visit Louisville for another art trip, I going to stay there,” I thought to myself.

But of course, time and expenses or lack thereof intervened and my arrival was much delayed … but here I am slumping over the keyboard in a thick groove as Marvin Gaye croons, “What’s Goin’ On” through the speakers piped in overhead.

I’m sitting in what can only be described as an art gallery because that’s exactly what it is … an art gallery. I’m on the basement floor below and adjacent to the main lobby of the 21C Museum Hotel. Within my line of sight are lookers and gawkers who are pointing and chatting and oohing and aahing. Like me, they’re here for the night or perhaps for a just glimpse of what all the talk is about.

Well, I can’t exactly say it’s the talk of the town because I’m no townie, but it seems that nearly everyone in the art world has heard of this hot spot. Finally, someone dreamed of putting a true, literally down-to-earth art gallery in a hotel … or did they build a hotel around an art gallery? Pick your passion, but both are working like a charm on this art lover. Why wouldn’t it? This is the first of my art trips in which art and lodging didn’t just run parallel or perpendicular, they’re literally hand in hand. The hotel IS the art and the art IS the hotel.

About thirty feet away from me on the opposite wall, I’m drooling over three, long horizontal Mikhael Subotzky (South African) archival pigment photo prints depicting prison situations. They’re “Cell 25,” “Reception” and “Cell 508b,” all studies from inside Voorberg and Pollsmoor Prisons (2004).

In the adjacent room are fourteen of Kara Walker’s refreshingly politically-incorrect framed lithographs. Up until now, I had only seen her work in museums and at the big art fairs, but gazing at them here in a real life setting makes them more accessible.

There are four nice-sized galleries off the main gallery where I’m now sitting. It’s a soaring, brick, steel beamed, white-walled, art loft. Just what the art doctor ordered for inquisitive travelers.

In my time here, visitors have come up and down and criss-crossed the space, marching on the sanctity of my art lodging dream. Their chit-chat is inconsequential, but precisely the point. This is what art SHOULD do. It should force dialogue, however shallow or profound and that chat should happen within the confines of a unique hotel. They just don’t make ‘em quite like this.

PAUSE

As I pause, I’m looking upward at a gigantic, full-bodied, digital print of a mainly nude woman who looks like Bjork from afar, but I don’t think it is. All I know is while the piped-in music plays Stevie Wonder’s, “Boogie On A Reggae Woman,” I’m smiling at this raven-haired, alabaster beauty with her arms outstretched and her taut breasts in full view with a hint of linen loincloth hugging her lovely hips. She’s standing on a white background, perhaps somewhat Christ-like … or is she mocking Christ? That wouldn’t be very nice. Either way, artist Sukran Moral (Turkish) has made what he calls “Artista” (1994) perfection. Is it Bjork? The way I’m feeling now, it doesn’t matter. She’s gorgeous nonetheless.
The long and short of it is you don’t get this everyday in your run of the mill hip hotel. This is art as art should be seen. I want to take each and every one of these works up to my uber-hip room and then out the door as I depart.

But alas, no such deed will I do. I’ll just remember this place and this space and think that finally someone has done contemporary art the justice it’s due. They’ve made 7th & Main the intersection of lodging and art. There’s art on every floor and in almost every nook and cranny … installation pieces too.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention that moments before I checked in, I saw a couple of guys decked out in cream colored suits. I didn’t think much about it until I headed up to my room on the fourth floor (401) and the elevator doors opened. Waiting for the other elevator across the hall was a blonde bride looking as lovely and as modern as could be. With that, a light-bulb went on over my head like the artful lights installed in the elevator ceiling.

“Oh! You must be the bride!” I said. “Yes, Hi!” she replied. “You look lovely. Congratulations,” I said. “Thanks!” she replied, beaming as only young brides can beam. Hmm. Maybe she was merely a model at a photo shoot.

In any event, here’s the real point. Should you hold a wedding or any other special bash in a hip, art hotel? You bet your ass you should. Each one gives the other greater purpose.

Assuming it was a true wedding event, the bride and groom probably paid a pretty penny for 21C. I wonder if they got to ride away in that red, bejeweled 21C limousine I saw out front. Even the limo is art!

It’s like I always say. When you bring art into the picture, it’s a kick ass scene … or perhaps I should be a bit more urbane and just say … it’s a no brainer.

MICHAEL CORBIN IS AN AVID ART COLLECTOR AND AUTHOR OF THE MULTI AWARD-WINNING BOOK, “THE ART OF EVERYDAY JOE: A COLLECTOR’S JOURNAL.” CHECK OUT HIS WEBSITE AT WWW.ARTBOOKGUY.COM

Created by Michael Corbin On 06/22/09 At 11:16 AM

Here’s another artist’s studio. This one belongs to Maine artist Gail Sauter.

So many artists that I know have dogs hanging around their studios. Painters seem to be dog people more than cat people.

And little gems like this come out of her studio..

See more paintings by Gail Sauter at her website here and/or read her blog here.

Over the last three months, the CAPC contemporary art museum in Bordeaux has played host to the French artist Jean-Luc Blanc, organising a vast retrospective of his work.

Born in 1965 in Nice, Jean-Luc Blanc started his artistic career by drawing, gradually venturing towards painting. This picture-lover takes constant inspiration from the numerous media that our society puts forward, gleaning images from magazines, newspapers, postcards, and films. After a frenzied period of collecting and accumulation, several pictures ‘impose’ themselves to Jean-Luc Blanc, and he selects these to paint. Transferring a small picture to a larger-sized painting allows the artist to give a second life to the image – he says himself that photography is an execution, painting a resuscitation. Giving pictures selected from our everyday life a new purpose, cancelling their first meaning, bringing anonymity to stars, conferring new-found glory on John Does – this is Jean-Luc Blanc’s game. With this somewhat simple and repetitive technique, the artist masterfully allows the spectator to come across a new image, free of its past, and open to interpretation. Discovering Jean-Luc Blanc’s work allows us to come to terms with our own personal way of looking at art.

Along with over two hundred of his paintings and drawings, forty-five other artists have been brought together by Jean-Luc Blanc and the Parisian curator Alexis Vaillant to be part of this retrospective.
Indeed, when invited to create a retrospective of his work, Jean-Luc Blanc couldn’t conceive his canvasses without the production of other artists, contemporary or historical, that have influenced him throughout his career. Add to that antiques and anonymous objects, artworks from the municipal museums of Bordeaux, and you have a fully blown ‘Opera Rock’, an eclectic collection of the desires and inspirations of Jean-Luc Blanc, set out in thirteen rooms of the second floor gallery of the CAPC.
Along with sound effects orchestrated by Mr. Learn, and the phantom of the French writer Marguerite Duras hanging over the exhibition, the CAPC has successfully managed to give you the feeling of entering into Jean-Luc Blanc’s mind and understanding his approach as an artist, his world of imagination and creation. This 3D version of his brain is characterised by a diversity of techniques, a medley of generations and nationalities, and a multiplicity of truths.

Works by Michel Blazy, paintings by Dan Attoe, bestial sculptures by Laurent Le Deunff, and photographs by Diane Arbus dialogue with installations by Vidya Gastaldon, hand-crafted objects by Shannon Bool, shotgun paintings by William Burroughs, videos by Brice Dellsperger and lithography by Odilon Redon. All of these accompany the enigmatic paintings of Jean-Luc Blanc, communicating as if old friends.
Portraits face abstract oil paintings, delicate porcelain ornaments sit side by side with ancient mummy hands, wooden silhouettes talk to metal-wire spiders… Almost three hundred artworks share the space of this exhibition, an original and quasi extensive portrayal of the thoughts of Jean-Luc Blanc, a way to understand his art differently and to combine backstage (the inspiration of the artist) with the stage itself (his own production), symbolised here by the tall black screens (as if in a theatre) that accompany the visitor the further he ventures into the exhibition.

Let yourself be drawn into this artist’s space – you won’t be disappointed.

Jean-Luc Blanc, Opera Rock
From the 25th of March to the 14th of June 2009
CAPC musée d’art contemporain de Bordeaux, France

Created by Alice Cavender On 06/04/09 At 03:20 PM

Brian Sherwin from MyArtSpace has created a list of tips for artists looking to be seen online. Some of his tips include..

• Answer email that you receive about your art promptly.
• Be smart about how you list your contact info.
• Have a website or online community profile that is devoted to your artwork.
• Create free accounts on online art communities.
• Maintain an active blog for your art.
• Establish yourself on social networking sites.

Read the rest of Brian’s artist tips over his My Art Space Blog. He’s also involved with the online art galleries at My Art Space and New York Art Exchange.

If I could give just ONE tip to an artist looking to create an online presence it would be to create your own website, with your own domain name, on your own web host, built by yourself. If you’re too cheap to have your own website, you probably aren’t that serious about being an artist.

If you’re only presence online is with a free service (Blogger, Geocities, etc..) or even an online art gallery that charges a monthly fee, you’re cheap and you don’t take your career as an artist seriously. I’m not saying don’t use free services or online galleries as they’re very useful networking tools for artists, but they should come after you have developed your own online portfolio WithYourOwnDomain.com.

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