Back in April 2009 a reader of my Blogs for AbsoluteArts posted the following comment:
“On the www.albertosughi.com website there is a very powerful painting called “Ruling class”. Would love to participate in a discussion on that piece.” Since then I committed myself to holding such a discussion and today I will try to maintain that promise. Possibly in order to understand The Ruling Class (“La Classe Dirigente, Oil on Canvas, 165×140cm, 1965) we need to place and read it in the context of another group of works also painted between 1964 and 1965. So let’s start by examining the Historic Moment (L’Ora Storica), a work I painted at the end of 1964 and that clearly is a prelude to The Ruling Class itself.

This is a triptych, 165 by 420 centimetres, one of the paintings that most reflect if not the world of Bacon, at least Bacon’s style, clawing at the canvas, his very open way of painting first on unprepared canvas, with a great sweep of background colouring, that had a strong influence on me. I felt most attracted to three painters: Degas, Munch and Bacon. In fact, I then felt an affinity between them, even if secretly, not from the thematic point of view, but as a way of confronting the canvas, a great affinity between Degas and Bacon.

In fact, Bacon was influenced by Sickert, who was influenced by Degas, and had a certain way of painting nudes that could also allude to the scabrous style of Munch. A painter who has no problems with poetics, because he is sure of always being himself, does not have any difficulty in stealing from others what can serve for his own paintings. I mean that painting derives from painting, but is continually modified when it meets an artist who is not contaminated by the poetics of someone else, but appropriates methods, techniques, ways of giving strength to his own imagination. This is a painting, a triptych. It has Bacon’s style, but does not represent anything that Bacon’s work represents. It is a painting inspired by the criticism of the Italian political world and the refusal of the ‘historic compromise’. We are afraid of governments, afraid that someone will stand at a black pulpit or on a black throne. When I painted the black of the desk I was even reminded of Malevitch’s black square. And then there is a figure without a face getting up, in the act of taking off his jacket in readiness for command. If we want to digress to consider the subject-matter, I could have stolen the title from Goya, ‘The sleep of reason generates monsters’.

Immediately after the Triptych I worked at a group of new paintings: Man at the window 1964 , Man with a dog 1965 and The Ruling Class itself.

In this group of paintings there is, in comparison with my previous work, the addition of a geometrization above the figures or imprisoning them, locking them in, as in a cage, or giving them greater prominence, as in Man at the window, who is looking out from the inside. Even in Man with a dog there are two lines, almost pointing to the door out of which the master is coming, and the dog goes towards him. Above all in The ruling class we see some geometrical shapes overhanging the figures. There is a geometrization that was previously absent and that is very clear during this period. In commenting on these paintings I can say that every time that I have faced the problem of The Ruling Class – even the Triptych faced that problem – I have always spoken of it as if the reason could be found there – the root of the discomfort of contemporary man – almost as if really the job of the managerial classes is to make life easier for everybody. Whoever has the job of redistributing wealth and power, of making the rules, is rather, in effect, a figure who doesn’t have anything to say to others, but only to himself.

Today we speak of a political caste. Every time that I have represented anything concerning politics, I have always spoken as if it is a caste. And it is strange that even in a painting that was painted much later, in the eighties, but that is connected with these themes, called Roman Sunset, we see politicians bowing, kissing a naked woman who represents corruption, representing everything that a powerful Rome manages in inconceivable ways. As if to say that those who represent us represent nothing more than themselves, and that we are therefore alone in dealing with something that will never arrive, like the man, like men standing at a window and waiting for something, a person or an event, that will never come.

Once the painter and novelist Dino Buzzati, speaking of my painting, said that it reminded him of Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett, men waiting for something that will never happen. He was perhaps thinking of his The Desert of the Tartars, but, in fact, I do have an idea that Man cannot find something that he knows could exist, but that is hidden who knows where. After all, if I wanted to describe these characters, I would say that they propose the figure of a man who would like to wait and believe, but who has lost the faith for believing.

Alberto Sughi
For more info on Alberto Sughi see. www.albertosughi.com

Created by Alberto Sughi On 07/09/09 At 11:22 AM

Four years have gone by and it’s getting harder to keep time from slipping by. Is it age-related or just the fact that I’ve been keeping busy? I really don’t give it much thought, it’s just a fact I’m confronted with now that I’ve packed up my studio and shipped my things off to a new destination where I’ll start all over again.

In the past year, though, keeping busy had something to do with it. One of the reasons I decided to stop posting on aa was because there was too much I needed to tend to, and the lure of the ethereal world was sneakily keeping me away from the real one. But I also felt that a break from blogging and commenting might actually be a good healthy thing. Too many things kept popping up on my screen asking me to join and I needed to distance myself from my computer ‘routine’ to be able to focus on the concrete things I wanted to achieve at the studio. What’s the point of being on 8 different sites if you can’t get anything worthwhile completed in the real world to talk about?

So let me tell you about some of the few things I was able to help out with apart from my own production and input at OD?

In this past year OD – oficina do desenho – came a long way. From being a small independent art school where Rui Aço gathered his students and I helped out as tutor and developed my own projects as artist in residence we have become an association and have since started to engage our community in a more pro-active way.

The snowball had been picking up momentum but it was really only after we presented our collective project at the Cascais Cultural Centre [Dec 08 to Feb 09] that we started to realise the impact OD seemed to be having and that we became fully aware of the opportunities and responsibilities we could expect in the coming years.

The project 3 Men on a Boat in which Rui and I teamed up with Fernando Vidal – before he distanced himself for professional reasons – was not a commercial exhibition but nevertheless it was one of the most successful projects I ever took part in. The reward was not monetary; it was much more valuable than that. I think I can safely say that it enhanced our presence as artists and as trustworthy partners within our community. It opened doors for future exhibition possibilities and collaborations with the local authorities both as consultants and as active creative participants in cultural activities. And, because it went on for over two months it exposed us to a greater audience, as a matter of fact it was one of the least publicized yet most visited exhibitions at the cultural centre ever.

The staff at the Centre were tremendous, they fell in love with the project and went beyond the call of duty to spread the contagion to visitors coming in to see the galleries hosting more publicized artists. Maybe this had to do with the fact that Rui and I were present on location most of the time. Indeed, to me it felt like home for those twelve weeks. Personally I didn’t so much see this as an occasion to dump my work, no matter how beautifully presented, but as a privileged opportunity to deepen the much needed connections with curators and the people in charge.

I also invited a few selected people over to lunch at the centre’s restaurant and gave tours, maybe not so much spoken but just to be there with the public lest they wanted to ask questions, and though we invariably spoke about other things it was always somehow linked to the philosophy behind the work and what we aim to achieve with the school.

Local schools, from kindergarten to 12th graders, organized field-trips to see the show and ask us questions… and, sometimes, play with the dangling steel treads of my boat, which, I’ll admit, must have been a temptation for any child [and I caught a glimpse of the odd grown-up having a go!], but it was so inspiring to be caught up in their enthusiasm that it made it impossible to ask them not to touch. I can’t even begin to tell you how rewarding it was to see my installation and video through the eyes of those children. No amount of money can equal that.

Once that was over I slowly entered into a new mode – different tempo, different focus. In January my wife was told that she would be reassigned to a new posting and so when we took down the show my boat came straight back home. I continued to paint and oversee the work of the students at OD up until the end of May but the students couldn’t help but notice how the paintings, art materials and unfinished canvases kept disappearing until there was nothing left but the original concrete space I had added a little colour to over the three years I was there.

I’ll miss those exchanges with the students, I’ll miss Rui’s insight and companionship, our painting styles may seem diametrically opposed but we share much in common and I learnt a great deal from him while I was there. It was good while it lasted, and I’ll always be connected to the school in some capacity or other, I am, after all, one of the founders, but I’ve become more and more absorbed with the move and have instinctively crept into that buffer-zone I know inside of me where I am able to cope with the loss and prepare for the new stuff.

In May, with me half-here-half-there and not being much help, OD organised an event that brought together commerce and art in an attempt to boost people’s morale and get them back on the streets looking at the shops and at the art. The original idea was for 30 shops to allow 30 artists to redo their shop windows with art for two weeks and hand out a prize for the best collaboration [artists and shop owners were supposed to work together on this], but things soon got out of our hands when word spread and we ended up with sixty shops… and minus 30 artists. Ana Grácio and Rita Cardim solved things smoothly, amazingly and in record time, rounding up the remaining artists and getting some of the school’s own students, as well as other art schools to join in the ride. Also, the work they had as coordinators, getting artists and shop owners to get along peacefully while at the same time getting all the visuals ready and out on the streets [banners, leaflets with maps, red carpets for the important guests at the cocktail, etc.] was an important part of the event’s success, contributing greatly to putting OD on the local map.

I won’t go into the details here but it was a tremendous success, with a formal opening by the Mayor and the cultural and legal advisors from the Town Hall and the Cascais Cultural Centre taking their time to see each and every shop, talking to the artists and shop owners [when initially it had been said that there would only be time for a brief overview of the main square area]. From here on I think many things are possible, many doors have opened, both for OD and for each individual helping out to make it what we all wish it to become. And even if in the years to come I won’t be participating as an active participant I still look forward to telling you more about its progress as Rui keeps me informed, because I now think of it as one of my babies as well.

As for me, soon, I hope, I’ll be getting back to the business of setting up a new studio and looking for new projects – starting from scratch… in Japan.

Created by Jose Freitas Cruz On 07/03/09 At 11:11 AM

As photographer of details of architecture, I am conditioned to observe my surroundings carefully. I notice buildings, but I hone in on the line of a corner; the angle of a gable; a fashioned decorative vine on a wrought iron gate and the stone carvings on a façade. Fine tuning a bit more, I visually thrive on the textures used for building: grainy granite, polished marble, satiny wood, rough brick, smooth cold iron. These elements create an environment that promotes creativity for me. And above all the light that permeates the scene sets the tone of my photography. Rembrandt ’s art and the light of his world are the reasons that I recently went to Amsterdam. To know and to understand an artist ’s work on an intimate level, it is essential to see the light with which the artist worked. I believe that the light of Amsterdam defined Rembrandt ’s paintings, drawings, etchings. The way that the master saw his subjects, gave him the framework for the art he created.

Amazingly, in a world that is evolving with split second timing, Amsterdam welcomes the future to blend smoothly with the past. It is quite possible to imagine that you are walking along the canals with Rembrandt in the 1600 ’s. The city is criss-crossed with canals that reflect the soft misty light back into the sky. In late May, when I visited the city, the huge puffy clouds of Rembrandt ’s landscapes were just as low to earth as in his paintings. It seemed as if I could pull off a piece of cloud like cotton candy if I stretched out my arm. The marvelous billows of grays, whites, ochres, yellows, blues and many other colors were dotted with openings, big and small, to the soft sky beyond. Through these portals light drifted in soft shafts. Rays that lit fragments of a building, a tree or a face. The delicate way that the light illuminates in Amsterdam creates a mood of fluidity: seamless values.

When the sky turned darker in the late afternoon, I could see the glow that glorified so many of Rembrandt ’s subjects. The setting sun through the mist that was usually present allowed beams of radiant light to highlight with a luminosity for which the master is famous. The golden shafts of light were slightly blurred by the watery atmosphere to create a soft, ethereal radiance that was both brilliant and subtle. The night sky also presented a much more diffused dark than I have experienced. The celestial bodies, when visible, seemed to have a filmy edge with a sparkling central area that gave the sky a surreal enchantment. Perhaps the same magic that suffuses the nightscapes Rembrandt prolifically painted.

On one extraordinary day, my son Joe, who had generously gifted me with the wonderful trip, and I took an excursion to Ghent and Bruges in the Flemish region of Belgium. Throughout the drive (furthest four hours outside of Amsterdam) there are farmlands and grazing cows, and other farm animals. Occasionally we spotted a windmill. The scenery was so much like being in a Rembrandt work that the experience may have surpassed seeing the master ’s paintings and drawings in the Rijksmuseum. The day was sunny, but the light was, again, as in Amsterdam, filtered, soft, delicate. The pastoral landscape was filled with water trenches that collect the abundant rainfall and irrigate the farms. Enormous clouds hung low and echoed the blues, greens and pale yellows of the countryside. Remarkable light.

Our journey was filled with marvelous sights and delightful chance encounters with people we met along the way. Always, I felt the presence of Rembrandt: walking by the canals, sitting in a charming courtyard or square, traversing the countryside and seeing the light that he saw. Although four hundred years have passed since Rembrandt lived and created art in Amsterdam, he is very much alive there today.

Created by Ellen Fisch On 06/29/09 At 04:43 PM

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