The Hol Notebook

Kathy Halbreich on creativity in museums

2010-07-09T16:02:31Z

Visitors at MoMA. Photo by Amy Whitaker.Just getting into Artforum's single-themed summer issue devoted to "The Museum Revisited". The first inclusion is by MoMA associate director, and former Walker Center director, Kathy Halbreich. For me, some of the most interesting tidbits revolve around a sense of everyday creativity, and how that creativity might be better harnessed and celebrated by museums, which tend otherwise to be essentially conservative institutions. The piece (written as told to Artforum editor Tim Griffin) is well worth a read, but I wanted to pull out a few choice thoughts here:

On her tenure at the Walker Center:

I wanted to see whether some of the class divisions within an institution could be erased, so that, for instance, the extraordinary people who worked in the basement--the so-called crew, many of whom were artists--would know that their voices were important in the galleries. Similarly, I wanted to bridge the gap between administrators and programmers. We were all creative partners, and emphasizing this would, I hoped, make everyone feel deeply engaged in the institution.

Thinking from MoMA:

I'm also interested in people who make expressive things--films or dances or music compositions--on YouTube but who don't call themselves artists. I wonder whether they aren't part of our audience. We're beginning to look at how to engage those folks ... This leads us to new distribution and display systems we need to understand and embrace.

I think as a culture, we really are scared of artists. I think, as a culture, we're not really interested in ambivalence or ambiguity. I think, as a culture, we give no reward to intelligent failure.

And one that sounds good, but that I don't quite get:

... now, in the twenty-first century, I would rather the institution set standards in terms of permission rather than canon. In other words, if the canon is about a kind of certainty, perhaps today permission could usefully be about a kind of fluidity--a different way of constructing reality.

Caravaggio's bones, Hopper's diner, Seurat's palette

2010-07-05T23:53:30Z

There were two interesting art stories in the front section of yesterday's New York Times. Neither had much to do with actual art, but both offer great entries into art.

First, the recently discovered bones of the infamous 17th-century painter Caravaggio were honored Saturday by officials in Porto Ercole, Italy, the artist's final resting place. Caravaggio has long been a favorite rogue and rapscallion for writers and adventure-seeking art historians. Half a dozen books have been written about him in the last decade that have proved to be popular sellers with a more general audience. I've no hard evidence, but I'd bet that at least some of those general readers have gone on to consider Caravaggio in more depth following those first encounters. Perhaps reading another book on him, or even just spending more time in front of his paintings when they came across them in museums. This new story, of the bones, is another way for non-art people to get interested in something art-related, even if it does have a bit of the tabloid stink to it. My favorite parts of the Times article are quotes by incensed and skeptical art-worlders looking down on the whole sordid scene. It's their loss, and ours, not to see beyond the surface of the story and to take advantage of the opportunity to educate us more about the artist and his work.

Second, Jeremiah Moss gives us an Op-Ed write up chronicling his search for the real New York diner from Edward Hopper's famous painting, Nighthawks. Where Caravaggio's bones might take us from the outside world in, here is an approach that starts with a work of art first and then moves outward, into the real world. It's particularly worth noting here, that Moss has a blog called Vanishing New York, which he describes as "a bitterly nostalgic look at a city in the process of going extinct". His quest for Hopper's diner then proves the perfect foil for making a connection between this ongoing passion for the city, and visual art.

Both of these articles (and their placement outside the paper's art section) are perfect examples of ways in which we might connect to art, or might come to it, outside the normal paths of museum visits, art appreciation course, and the like. These unusual, more unlikely ways are also, I think, particularly valuable for engaging new viewers and future art lovers. As long as we recognize and encourage them when we see them.

Lastly, all this reminded me of a quick posting a few week's ago on the hugely popular general blog, kottke.org featuring George Seurat's palette. An object, a single image really, that as I'll probably post about again later this summer from the Art Institute of Chicago, functions in much the same way as Caravaggio's bones and Hopper's diner; as an alternate way into art.

Art books not in the art section

2010-07-05T23:23:47Z

Just visited Books Inc. in Palo Alto. It's a terrific little independent, but frankly, they have a terrible art section. This is true for their Mountain View store as well. However, browsing around a bit, I found quite a number of art-related titles in other sections of the store. A couple non-fiction and numerous art novels. Some featured on tables, several in the book club section, and one with the bargain books. In the end, looking beyond the meager shelves of the art section, the store turned out to be quite a treasure trove of books on art. The experience reminded me of a longstanding dream of mine to develop a mobile phone app that would offer art lovers and bookstore browsers ideas for art books: classics they might find in the art section, new releases they might find on feature tables, or novels in the fiction section, mysteries, books of poetry, etcetera.

De Kooning did a book cover too, but should he have?

2010-06-24T16:44:52Z

1959 first edition of Harold Rosenberg's "The Tradition of the New", cover designed by artist Willem De Kooning.

I love that De Kooning did this cover for The Tradition of the New, but is it honestly successful as such? I don't think so.

Fine art is used extensively on book covers, but when it's successful I think more-often-than-not it's a stand-alone work presented within a separate framework designed to hold the title, author, etc... like Penguin's or NYRB's great series of classics. Rarely do fine artists handle the lettering as well. Equally rare is to have the artwork created specifically for the book, rather than it being existing artwork that is paired perfectly with the book (the job and special talent of great art directors and designers). These distinctions are fundamentally ones of artwork vs. illustration. So, when last night's episode of Bravo's "Work of Art" reality television show was based on the fine art contestants designing book covers, I was dubious. And in the end, with one notable (I think excellent) exception, I think my skepticism was proven -- link to the work from Bravo TV's "Work of Art".

From our Twitter feed:

Despite crossover btwn my 2 favorite things--art & books--I'm skeptical about tonight's #workofart designing Penguin Classics book covers.

Loved #workofart TIME MACHINE cover, but rest were awful incl 2nd place DRACULA which would be laughed out of any respectable design school.

Art is fundamental too

2010-06-22T19:47:50Z

I had a great dinner conversation about art education last night with Marissa McClure (@marissamcclure, University of Arizona). I came away slightly shocked about how deficient my own view of it was as an art person and as a parent. Here's what I think I learned:

As a culture, we tend to believe that Art is a product of mysterious genius, a muse. So, when we see some kids as naturally artistic at an early age and some not, that's okay. We support the individual endeavors, the muses, of each. For those that draw, we provide supplies, time, direction and encouragement, and for those that don't, we find other activities. Makes sense, right?

But now think about reading. Like art, some kids take naturally to reading and some don't. And also like for art, we encourage the kids that have that natural interest and ability by providing them with more books, helping them with hard parts, and encouraging them with positive reinforcement. But for the kids that don't take naturally to reading, do we say, "Oh, it's okay that that these kids don't like to read, they can do something else instead."? Of course not, we teach them to read. They may not turn out to be good readers, and they may not ever particularly like reading, but that's okay. We at least give them the skills to do it before standing back and letting them to their own devices.

We value reading as a fundamental part of our culture and so we teach it to our children. The same same goes for writing and math. It was Marissa's argument, and I believe it, that art is fundamental too.

During the course of our conversation, this realization came to me suddenly. Up to that moment, despite deep and continual interactions with art in my own life, I had been blindly in the "mysterious genius" camp when it came to my 4-year-old son. While I don't think of him as particularly artistic, save the occasional drawing of a rescue vehicle, it had never occurred to me that just as I encourage him to count, to correctly identify words on a page, and to write his name in capital letters, I should also encourage him to draw, and should give him the tools to do so. I had just thought, "Oh well, he's not artistic"!

Yes, great art may indeed be the product of a special genius, but art in general is not. Art in general -- call it the reading and writing of images -- should be a fundamental part of all our experiences. It should be something we have like we have the ability to read the headlines on a paper, or add the numbers on a receipt. It should, and it can, but we have to start somewhere, and best to start now.

Arts Journalists on Arts Journalism

2010-06-08T16:54:56Z

I hope you all regularly follow the National Arts Journalism Program's (NAJP) blog ARTicles, edited by Laura Collins-Hughes. If you don't, or if you haven't visited in awhile, don't miss the current, ongoing discussion about the state of arts journalism, and the reality of dis-reality of a possible new arts journalism publication. It spans multiple posts (and don't miss the comments), but it's well worth the read:

Castles in the Sky, John Rockwell, May 27
Castle-building, step two, J. Rockwell, June 2
What the Hell's Wrong with NAJP'ers?, Peter Plagens, June 5
Of Castles, Peter and NAJPers, Douglas McLennan, June 7
Whatever. Let's Just Put Out a Publication, P. Plagens, June 8

I'm working on my own book- and visual-art-centric response now and will post it in the next day or two. Of course if you have ideas of your own in the meantime, speak up!

Saddened by our home state

2010-04-27T19:47:46Z

In protest of Arizona's recently-passed anti-immigration bill, SB1070, starting now and for at least the next month we are giving 25% of all holartbooks.com sales to Border Action. Their mission statement reads:

"Border Action Network formed in 1999 and works with immigrant and border communities in Southern Arizona to ensure that our rights are respected, our human dignity upheld and that our communities are healthy places to live. We are a membership-based organization that combines grassroots community organizing, leadership development, litigation and policy advocacy."

Thank you.

Frank Gohlke on writing: "another mystery, just like photography"

2010-03-23T19:49:18Z

The following is an edited transcript from the video of Frank Gohlke's talk at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, October 25, 2009. Gohlke will be speaking and reading from his book, Thoughts on Landscape: Collected Writings and Interviews, today, March 23, 2010, at the Center for Creative Photography in Tucson, Arizona. And don't miss the recent, in-depth review of the book at Design Observer.

"I thought I might say something about what got me to take up the pen after starting photography. Taking up the pen for me was a very fraught action. I had stopped my study of English Literature because I couldn't write papers and the program I was in was all writing papers. You know, if they had given me an exam or something that would have been fine, I could study for it, I just couldn't write anything. So, photography was kind of rescue.

"I don't think it was primarily because I couldn't figure out what else I was going to do—although that did play into it—it was that suddenly I could think. And I enjoyed thinking. I enjoyed reading and I enjoyed thinking about books too, but I was totally blocked, the words just wouldn't come out. With photography I could think and it was immediate. Either it was an interesting thought, or it wasn't, but the thinking itself was instantaneous, more or less.

"Several years later I was asked to write something and I did everything I could to escape, but I was being prompted by some pretty heavy authorities. So I just sat down and did it. And it was just as painful as it ever was, but I could do it, I actually got the piece out. Over the years I did this more and more, and suddenly, at some point—probably about fifteen years ago—I realized, 'Oh, I like this. I like this process.' It's very different from photography, and that's great because as wonderful as photography is, when you're doing it for forty years there's a certain degree of boredom that sets in. Writing seemed a perfect compliment because it was not instantaneous, because it was something that I could begin, and shape, and be surprised by in the same way that photographs surprised me. The surprises were of a very different order and no less controllable by me, but emergent rather than immediately existent.

"So, now, I wouldn't claim to be a writer, but I like to write. Of course when I re-read what I've written I'm mostly aware of how short it falls of what I consider great writing, but it's there and I don't disown the thoughts. Sometimes the way I express them is less elegant or accurate that I would like, but there it is. And now I've got a book of writing. A pretty storage experience, I can tell you, having been driven from graduate school by a total sit-down strike of my inner writing-implement. I now have a book, and it's got lots of pages. I mean, I look at it and I think where the hell did all those come from? When did I have time to do all this? So, you know, it's another mystery, just like photography." --Frank Gohlke

I love print, but I love books more

2010-03-02T19:15:22Z

I thought nothing of it at the time, but it seems strange now to say that I published an e-book long before I ever read an e-book. However, I've spent the last couple weeks remedying that situation, reading the Henry James novel Roderick Hudson (a coming of age tale about a young American sculptor in Rome) on my iPhone. It took my a bit of time to get into it -- the story and reading on my phone -- but now 84.12% into the book I can say I'm quite pleased with both.

Let me say from the start, that with a background in fine art printing, graphic design, and book publishing, there should be no doubt that I love print. However, I love books more. And with an e-book, the distance between me and the book I want to read is cheaper (sometimes even free) and faster (almost always instantaneous) than ever before.

Moving beyond the obvious cost and convenience benefits, there are some other essential benefits to reading on my phone (with the free Stanza reader app) that cannot be overlooked:

I can look-up the meaning of a word with the touch of a finger. Though I don't have to know the exact meaning of cortile (an open, internal courtyard) or jocose (abounding in jokes, merry, sportive, humorous) to enjoy the book, I easily can.
I can make notes and view them at a glance, as well as in situ.
I can search. No more flipping around scanning pages for the quote I think I remember, no more wondering who some certain character is or when they first appeared, or when it was exactly that that thing happened that I remember reading about somewhere back in Chapter 2.

And last, but not least:

I have my phone, and so my book, with me everywhere.

Now of course, there are drawbacks. Though I haven't really experienced the eyestrain I thought I would, reading on my phone (or any other e-reader) will mean spending almost all of my day looking at a screen, and this shiny, backlit worldview had got to have negative impacts on my psyche if not on my eyes.

There's also the nerd factor as my phone becomes even more of an extension of me than it already was. My wife in particular, who's future livelihood depends at least in some way on the success of Hol and of e-books, would I think at this point contemplate destitution as a viable option over having a husband who brings his phone to bed every night.

And though I'm not going to get sappy over the smell of paper or the feel of a book in hand, there are also some subtler things lost in e-books worth mentioning. I miss being able to flip ahead to see how much farther it is to the next chapter or section break, and I miss the satisfaction of putting a just-finished book up on the shelf with the others. There are also social aspects missing too, like the fascination of seeing -- on shelves or on the train -- what other people are reading, not to mention the social and cultural importance of the independent booksellers whose existence is built around printed books, but whose value far exceeds those bound pages.

In the end though, it's been a positive first e-book experience. And though e-books won't replace my paperbacks, they will give me the benefit of vast new options when it comes to how, where, and what I might read.

Ruscha in LA

2010-02-23T17:03:14Z

I'm just finishing reading Ed Ruscha's Los Angeles by Alexandra Schwartz (MIT Press, 2010). Schwartz edited an earlier book of Ruscha's writing, Leave Any Information at the Signal (also by MIT Press, 2002) and her new book is the closest thing to a biography of the artist yet published. Using accessible language and a generally compelling story-line, Schwartz's well-researched book does well in examining the artist's role in four areas of culture: Pop Art, film, architecture, and, what I think can best be called, machismo. All are framed within their relationship to Los Angeles as well, though it's not clear to me that the book couldn't have also been titled Los Angeles' Ed Ruscha. Did he shape LA, or did LA shape him? Perhaps, in the end, the reason the man and the city are so entwined in the popular imagination, and the reason Schwart'z clever framework comes off as merely scratching the surface of inquiry into the connections, is that they inform one another equally. A perfect marriage of art and place. And in this book and the one previous, maybe also of artist and art historian.