You might remember that I'm having a show starting on the 18th. This is what the invite looks like, and please consider yourself invited.

Labels: Galleries, Matthew Langley, Washington DC

Recently I've been tightening up my canvases for my upcoming show - I was very concerned about using traditional stretcher keys because I was afraid of knocking a corner out of square (and ruining the artwork - since the grid is such a component of my work) after doing a bit of research someone suggested using a expanding bolt on all four corners and tightening them (or loosening) as necessary. I thought that is one heck of a good idea. So I went off the Home Depot to find what in industry parlance is called a "Turnbuckle". Now the only thing I know about turnbuckles is that George "The Animal" Steele used to eat the turnbuckle in professional wrestling - this I reasoned was not the best knowledge to have when it came to painting - I knew I needed a TB with 45 degree ends to sit in the corner of a painting frame. You might be surprised to know that Home Depot does not carry these.

However Utrecht Art Supplies does. They are called "Best Keys" produced by the Jack Richeson & Co. of Kimberly Wisconsin. They cost 15 dollars for a set of four, and are a life saver.

The cheapest palette in the world
A lot of people paint with acrylic paint (I don't so I cant use this - however when I was in school I did, and did) and if you are pinching pennies in your studio practice (who isn't) this is a great thing. Milk cartons cut vertically make a great low cost palette - they can handle really soupy paint, or a lot of paint for a large surface. The best part is that they are probably in your house right now. I always used the paper style cartons however the plastic ones work too. So finish up whatever might be in the carton (or jug) and don't throw it away - re-use it.

For oil paints, I prefer to use something made of glass. With all the construction around these days, I would love to score a 6 x 6 double hung window - it would be like having 12 palettes! second best is "glass" trays found in microwave ovens - these are usually some kind of pyrex, hold up well, and scrape clean really well. Butcher trays (don't buy these new) are good as well - these are always around during yard sale season - cheap.

Cheap Gesso
This also probably falls into the acrylic painting vein - but will work with oil paint as well (not as recommended). Household latex paint - about $11 a gallon versus $20 a gallon at the art store. Always use two coats.

Get wet paintings off the floor
An old teacher of mine, Steve Kruvant, used to use coffee cans to keep wet paintings off the floor. If you smoke, you could fill them with sand and turn them into ashtrays as well (2 for 1 - very crafty!). I've seen people use discarded pieces of 1" x 2" to do the same thing - I use hockey pucks - because I've got a ton of them floating around the house from numerous teams and leagues. I do realize that is not standard for most people. Door stops work really well too. Please Note: I'm assuming that you understand that you will need more that one of these to really work - two is ideal.

Labels: general notice

My apologies for posting about the site - I try not to do this too often. You might have noticed that there are a few new links over on the left and that the navigation bar at the top has lightly changed. That's really all that happened, however the changes were important because of the way my work has changed (and the fact that I finally have some good photos). Please do feel free to check out the painting and paperworks part of the site, I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Please be prepared for a rash of show related post in the next few days.

Labels: general notice

Recently in the Washington Informer Patrice Gaines wrote about Lloyd Wolf's photographs of homemade street shrines to murder victims in Washington DC. Washington is home to a number of other more high profile shrines - and it's clear to me that these are more like the "forgotten ones".

I try not to get too high and mighty about politics on the blog, however, we as a nation seem to be more interested in the plight of other people in other nations, and are increasingly turning a blind eye to our own communities. Sometimes our light needs to be turned inward to see the problems we face on a more local level. Lloyds photographs carry a serious "personal is political" philosophy behind them and are all the more powerful because of it.

Don't get me wrong, I know not everyone gets to have a white marble monument, and I know it's hard everywhere, sometimes it just seems like we become too distracted by the things that are so far away.

Here's the article

Above, Lloyd Wolf, DeOnte' Rawlings's Shrine, 2007

Labels: Photography, Washington DC

Lloyd Wolf shot my work for the DCAC show (January 18) on monday and here is a peek at one of the new images.

I have a great piece of news abut Lloyd as well - see you tomorrow.



No One Receiving, 2007, oil on canvas, 60" x 50"

Labels: Galleries, Matthew Langley, Painting, Washington DC

The almost always interesting BLDGBLOG has a story today about the Australian artists The Glue Society. Here is the down low. TGS have put together a series of "satellite views" showing certain Biblical events as seen via Google Earth.

The artists are now; "aiming to produce further works using the same satellite imagery next year but this time relating to mythological occurrences and major historical events." The future via the past gets more interesting everyday.

BLDGBLOG
The Glue Society
Creative Review

The Glue Society, Moses parting the Red Sea (above), Crucifixion (below)

Labels: international, Photography

This is the first U.S. exhibition of Botero's recent paintings documenting his reaction to news accounts and images made at U.S. military prison in Abu Ghraib, Iraq. There are two ways to go with this and I'll try to break this into two pieces, one about the paintings, the other about the politics. To me this exhibition forces me to re-examine the overall approach of Botero's art output in general. Botero, if you are not familiar with his work, has historically painted images of rotund, complacent and usually very wealthy people. Let's hold on to that thought for just a moment.

The Paintings
Showing the whole suite of artworks developed over a period of barely over a year Botero has moved quickly and decisively to develop an approach that fits stylistically into his oeuvre. These paintings are much thinner and painted in a much faster manner - they are in a way "samizdat" but paintings as opposed to printing(s). The approach of these images work for this suite of artworks - for this review, I'm going to suspend the "Painting is about "how" not "what" approach that I firmly believe in, because, the how of these images is secondary to the overall theme and message of the artworks. That said, the painting approach is perfunctory at best, but highly descriptive. In other words, the painting is just enough to tell the story. You will never be in love with the paint handling of these images, nor should you.

The Politics
The politics of torture are to most, not complex. Ask almost anyone and they will tell you that torture is morally wrong and they are opposed to it. I really believe that this is true only in abstraction. When torture enters our reality, the simplicity becomes complex. War is the great differentiator that changes the use of torture. I'm sure that there are a number of people that have no problem with the actions of the U.S. military in this situation. I do. I am appalled that this kind of image; forced humiliation and feminization, body piling and forced sexual experience, sodomization, urination as well as attack dogs are the legacy of our country's current real-politic on the world stage. This - to borrow from Tom Wolf - is the "wrong stuff".

There is another kind of politic at work here as well; the personal politics of a single voice. I've read before that to many, art is the expression of an individual that may or may not be in step with the personal desires of the population. I never really thought that I needed to see these paintings before I knew of their existence - however after learning about them over a year ago, I have been most interested in seeing them. Botero's personal feelings come through loud and clear. That reflection of the personal politic is one of the few ways art can become a powerful moving force in our political culture.

I'm curious about the implications that these acts of torture by a "civilized country" such as ours will bring to us as a nation in the future.

The Approach of Botero's Artworks
I asked you to hold on to the knowledge that Botero has historically painted images of rotund, complacent and usually very wealthy people. I am now forced to re-evaluate those images as not the light hyper-real satire that they seem to be, but possibly a much darker version of ourselves where our worst actions manifest themselves physically and place our true core of humanity on display for everyone to understand.

Fernando Botero - Abu Ghraib, is on display at the Katzen Art Center at American University through December.

Labels: Museums, Painting, Washington DC

Since I almost never talk about money on the blog, I thought this might be interesting to some. It's from the Art Newspaper ABMB edition.

After Sotheby's sale (the recent auction), financial analysts advised their clients not to buy the auction house's shares.

SK: The analysts understand the art market less than dealers and collectors. To take the Sotheby's sale as an indication of how the entire market is doing would be a mistake. Analysts judge shares by looking at the profits of a company. Because of the guarantees they offer, auction houses can hold record sales and still lose money.

I am not saying there is no relation between the financial markets and the art market, I'm saying there is no obvious relation. It makes more sense to relate the results of the sales to the freshness of the work to the market, the quality of the art on offer and so on. There are a lot of factors.

Also, the auctions reflect a part of the market made up of relatively few artists. At Art Basel we show over 2,000 artists and that number only represents a fraction of the artists the galleries exhibit. So, it is better to take auction results only as one indicator, of course a strong psychological indicator about general confidence in the market, but one which only reflects a small part of the overall art market.

From the Art Newspaper www.theartnewspaper.com

Labels: Art Basel Miami Beach

The board of trustees of the Phillips Collection announced today the appointment of Dr. Dorothy Kosinski, senior curator of painting and sculpture at the Dallas Museum of Art, as the museum's new director.

Labels: Museums, Washington DC

It is not everyday that Richard Diebenkorn has a museum focus on him, and that is a shame. The last museum show that I could find on RD is from the Phillips (DC) in the early 1990's. That said I was happy to hear about the recent show DIEBENKORN IN NEW MEXICO: 1950-1952, at the San Jose Museum.

RD is best known and associated with San Francisco, from his involvement with the bay area figurative painters and later with his amazing "Ocean Park" series. I have never associated RD with "Albuquerque" of all places. Granted he does have a presence in the DC area which is widely known and spoken of as he claimed to use the museums as a training ground in the beginning of his art career when he was stationed here in the military.

This show will not doubt raise some questions concerning RD's early work - particularly his abstractions. One of the things I'm most interested in will be to see how the desert and its forms carry into his body of work. A body of work so connected to the west coast.

I will not be visiting the Show - I'd love to hear anyones reactions and thoughts.

Richard Diebenkorn, Untitled (Albuquerque), 1952. Oil on canvas, 68 x 60 inches (174.6 x 152.4 cm). The Buck Collection, Laguna Beach, California. Copyright The Estate of Richard Diebenkorn.

Labels: Painting

Bernard Holland writes in Sunday's New York Times of the re-staging of Phillip Glass's Einstein on the Beach. Claiming that it completely changed the way he thought about musical theater - he makes a good point about the difference in approach to traditional musical events. Einstein... never relies on chorus-verse-chorus or for that matter a traditional intermission, instead it uses repetition and tape loops to provide and opening for the listener to walk away for a bit and then return. Why not, the opera is almost 5 hours long, however it is a "fast" 5 hours.

I saw EOTB in 1992 at the BAM festival, and I will say that the performance asks for as much as the listener is willing to give and returns to the listener an abundance of ideas, images and thinking about what opera is and could be.

A lot of people tend to forget that EOTB is not just a Philip Glass opera, it is also a Robert Wilson opera. Although I don't speak of him often, I am a big Robert Wilson fan. So thoroughly have the images created by Wilson penetrated my thoughts about EOTB that it is impossible not to see them when I hear Philip Glass's music in other places. The images, specifically the spaceship in act 4, and the tall chair are amazing images both alone and as objects on a set.

Robert Wilson is an artist who I think deserves some kind of large scale showing of his work, lets hope this happens soon. Robert Wilson also collaborated with David Byrne on a project called The Knee Plays the record of the music for these pieces has finally been re-released and is well worth your time. I will admit to not being a big David Byrne "world Music" fan, however this music recorded with the New Orleans based "Dirty Dozen Brass Band" is, if I may speak like James Lipton, a delight.

My apologies on the quality of the photos - they were taken quickly out of books in the studio and are really not the greatest things.

Labels: 80's, New York