Made in NY 2019

I am happy to announce that the judges accepted one of my entries, The Institution of Marriage, for the Made in NY 2019 state-wide Art exhibit.  My third time gaining entry out of four tries, you never know what the jurors will accept.   E.g., this year they selected 75 artworks out of 518, and I am sure that most of those not chosen were, nonetheless, very good.

The jurors this year were Anne Novado, director of Novado Gallery, and Marie Via, the retired Director of Exhibitions at Memorial Art Gallery in Rochester, New York. 

One aspect I like about this is that all of these depicted objects are in my household, whether chess pieces or the hammer etc.

This is an annual exhibit at the Schweinfurth Memorial Art Center in Auburn, NY, and it runs this year from March 22 - May 12.   You can see more information about it here, http://www.schweinfurthartcenter.org/exhibits_details.cfm?id=108.

Catalyst or Catastrophe?

Look out!   Feline loose in the art studio!   Catalyst for creativity or catastrophe?

An Unlikely Duo: Norman Rockwell and Rene Magritte

Rockwell, Triple Self-Portrait (1960)

Magritte, Clairvoyance (1936)

        Norman Rockwell (1894-1978) painted people and so did Rene Magritte (1898-1967).  What is the difference?

        Many art critics look down on Rockwell and many people may not like Magritte too much.  I have found that those who do not know much about Magritte, however, think his artwork is intriguing enough to view, while few art critics take Rockwell seriously as anything other than an illustrator.

        It would be an interesting survey of people to see how many find interest in a Magritte, and how many art critics think of Rockwell as anything but an illustrator. 

        One parallel between the two artists is that both put their hand to commercial art, as Magritte took to designing wallpaper early in his career in order to earn an income.  

        Rockwell, of course, is famous for his covers adorning the Saturday Evening Post and, later, illustrations for Look magazine and other periodicals.  

        A point to ponder is how much of the commercial aspect infused Magritte’s art and how much fine art found its way into Rockwell’s painting. 

        Interestingly, there are two Rockwells and there are two Magrittes.  

        There is the Magritte of early cubism and futurism, struggling to get at another way to see the world.  Then he saw a painting by Chirico and—eureka!—it inspired to him take another route as in 1926 he created his first “Magritte” work, The Lost Jockey.  It is close to the approach of the movement of Surrealism and, eventually, the group invited him to become a member.  Magritte’s art was the iconic type of surrealism with its everyday views given a strange twist.

        Painting in this style, it occupied him for the rest of his life except for the vache or “nasty” period during WW2.

        Rockwell began illustration right at the beginning and always thought of himself as such.  Nonetheless, after his long association with the Post, he took on work with Look magazine and began to paint about the Civil Rights movement.  He had already painted the Golden Rule in 1961 after reading some ideas about comparative religion, and having failed to begin a similar project for the UN, he set about to represent a diverse depiction of ethnic and religious groups.

        Following this, one of his paintings, The Problem We All Live With, remains a strong statement during a time of unrest.

        So what is the difference?  Rockwell painted scenes as one may like to remember them, the romanticizing of illustration, but later he perceived how conflict might bring together humanity.  Magritte painted scenes that he derived from other styles, but soon broke out to present his haunting vision of the unexpected in human perception.

Art as Prophetic: Walter Benjamin and Marshall McLuhan

        Considering how the direction of some Western nations seem to be questioning the role of a liberal democracy (i.e., a nation founded upon individual rights), I wondered about the role of artist as a prophet rather than as only working as a poet.  A couple of thinkers from the past, Walter Benjamin and Marshall McLuhan, came to mind.  The quotations here are courtesy of
https://mcluhangalaxy.wordpress.com/2016/11/21/artists-as-distant-early-warning-systems/

Walter Benjamin, 1892-1940

        “It is well known that art will often – for example, in pictures – precede the perceptible reality by years,” wrote the philosopher Walter Benjamin in the 1930s. “It was possible to see streets or rooms (in paintings) that show all sorts of fiery colors long before technology, by means of illuminated signs and other arrangements, actually set them under such a light. Whoever understands how to read these semaphores in advance not only knows about currents in the arts but also about legal codes, wars and revolutions.”

Marshall McLuhan, 1911-1980

        Canadian media guru Marshall McLuhan offered a different metaphor with a similar point. “I think of art, at its most significant, as a DEW line, a Distant Early Warning system that can always be relied on to tell the old culture what is beginning to happen to it,” he wrote in the sixties.

Niagara Falls and Inspire: Beyond the Barrel 2018

This year for the 14th annual Beyond the Barrel exhibit the theme is "Inspire."  What is Art?  Why do people create Art?  From May 12 to July 29 the exhibit will present artwork that will portray the inspiration of various artists.  While it was not required of artists to do this, it should be intriguing to see how others understand the concept of inspiration and how it leads to the final conception--the work of Art itself.

I entered two works into the show, one of them is on exhibit for the first time, Self-Portraits.  Using a drawing that I completed a few years ago I decided to enlarge it on a 30" x 40" panel.  Portraits have been a source of inspiration in the Western Art heritage and I thought it was appropriate for this theme.

Self-Portraits; mixed-media on panel, 40" x 30"

Erich Fromm on Art, Productiveness, and Human Personality

Reading through Fromm's work from over 70 years ago caused me to remember some of the discussions back in my college days over 40 years ago concerning both the question of Art and the inherent creativity of humanity.  I think Fromm may have misused the notion of "photographic fashion" in trying to label Realism, but that hardly detracts from his point.

"Generally, the word 'productiveness' is associated with creativeness, particularly artistic creativeness.  The real artist, indeed, is the most convincing representative of productiveness.  But not all artists are productive; a conventional painting, e.g., may exhibit nothing more than the technical skill to reproduce the likeness of a person in photographic fashion on a canvas.  But a person can experience, see, feel, and think productively without having the gift to create something visible or communicable.  Productiveness is an attitude which every human being is capable of, unless he is mentally and emotionally crippled." 

---Erich Fromm, "Human Nature and Character," Man for Himself (1947), p. 85.

26th Regional Artists Exhibition at the Artists Group Gallery in Buffalo, NY

This year the 26th Regional Artists Exhibition for Western New York will take place from 6 October to 10 November.  The judge was artist Gary L. Wolfe, who selected my mixed-media artwork Reservation pictured below.

While I was favoring the other entry, I am happy that Mr. Wolfe chose Reservation to make this the sixth time I have had the privilege to display my work in a Buffalo regional.

Reservation is a slightly different direction for me although the imagery is similar to the last several years of my drawing and mixed-media pictures. Nonetheless, Reservation is one of two recent icons in which I employed the use of a clear acrylic sheet as another visual layer in addition to drawing and collage.

Reservation; mixed-media on board, panel, and acrylic sheet, 25" x 28"

John Berger and _Ways of Seeing_

After a re-viewing of the 1969 series Civilisation by Kenneth Clark this past year, I was reading various articles about it.   One reviewer recommended watching the shorter 1972 four-part series Ways of Seeing by John Berger as the "other side" of Art History.  I never had heard about it, or at least did not remember it, but off I went into YouTube in search of it.

When I was done with the first episode, I decided that I was going to purchase the book as well since this was a fresh look at Art.  Well, at least a fresh look to me of European Art.

Several writers have disparaged Berger's series, stating that he does not give a full account of Art as did Clark.  I judge this as unfair for the simple reason that four half-hour episodes are simply not going to be a full counter to Clark.  Further, I do not think that Berger was as much trying to balance Clark as much as he was trying to show another side of European Art.

While Clark engaged the formal aspects of Art and their historical context, Berger presented the economic context more so (after all, Berger was a Marxist) as well as the social context of a human being "seeing" Art in new settings.  

Further, and as weighty, he discussed as near a phenomenological reduction of Art as any philosopher could ask.  First, Berger helped the viewer take the presuppositions off the field of perception by showing artwork playing diverse sorts of music; he demonstrated how the background music played a role as to how one understands the artwork.

Manipulation of the audience perception of an artwork through the music is clear enough.

Next, he then exhibited artwork without music as one would see these elsewhere.  And, lastly, he offered artwork in other contexts just as we see them today and as no one in the past could have done so; in magazines, on TV, in commercial advertising.  

These various perceptions of artwork showed how the social context can be manipulated and understood as such so as to be avoided.

Berger also dove into the notion as to how a person sees in contrast to how a camera sees, how the setting of the viewer surely needs consideration as well, and the relation of the artwork to the viewer--is it just a commodity? 

Much more to say about this short but pithy series as Berger touched on serious philosophical issues concerning our understanding of Art.  While Clark provides a wonderful commentary as to the importance of Art in regards to the progress of human spirit (however construed), it becomes a bit too tidy at times.

Berger, however, revealed the precious, delicate state of Art in its own time and how many paintings considered "Art" need review.  I think it would be rewarding for any artist to watch Berger's series to remind one how such a particular selection of history may skew ideas about Art.

You can view all four episodes here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pDE4VX_9Kk

NACC Radio Interview 16 May 2017

Here is the link to my radio interview with Kelly Lang at the Niagara Arts and Cultural Center.  The interview lasted about 35 minutes and this section presents half that length so it is not too boring.
http://thenacc.org/radio-interviews/daniel-raymond-chadwick/

Beyond the Barrel: Niagara Falls 125

In honor of the City of Niagara Falls 125th anniversary, the Niagara Arts and Cultural Center is presenting an art exhibit with the theme on Niagara Falls from May 5 - August 6.  A juried show that will offer prizes in various categories, the NACC has been hosting the Beyond the Barrel art show for several summers. 

This is the first time since 2014 that I have entered artwork into the show, and I'm glad to say that the jurors accepted it.  Usually the show has an open theme but this year it is understandable that there is one concerning--what else?--Niagara Falls and all that may offer to one's imagination.

I picked up a previous idea from an earlier drawing and incorporated it into the artwork using bits and pieces of Niagara Falls history and legacy.  The judges selected this for "The Michael Kudela Tribute Award for Excellence in Mixed Media."

Tesla's Dilemma; mixed-media on panel, 36" x 60"

Made in NY 2017--Envisioning the Future

The exhibit Made in NY 2017 had a theme this year about the artistic vision of the future whether technological, sociological, political, and even physiological.  The judges selected 64 artworks out of 309, and one of my entries, Fearful Symmetries, will be in the show.

This is an annual exhibit at the Schweinfurth Memorial Art Center in Auburn, NY, and it runs this year from March 24 - May 21.  You can read more about the show and the center at http://www.schweinfurthartcenter.org/exhibits_details.cfm?id=84.

Fearful Symmetries; mixed-media on panel, 40" x 30"

Escher and Picasso: Two 20th Century Artists

Escher, Reptiles, (1943)

Picasso, Studio with Plaster Head, (1925)

Currently, there is an exhibit of work by M. C. Escher (1898-1972) at the Rochester Memorial Art Gallery (closing 29 January) and there is an exhibit of work by Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) at the Buffalo Albright-Knox Art Gallery (closing 19 February).

Having seen both exhibits, and considering that they were both artists of the early and mid-20th century, made me consider how they both are alike as well as different.

First, let's review briefly the criticisms about both; usually most art historians knock on Escher while they tout Picasso as a revolutionary and, of course, as one of the Great Artists of the Century.  They tell us that Cubism is a natural development from the artwork of Cezanne and, perhaps, parallels the great discoveries in science at the time.

All very well.   I happen to like much of the work by Picasso, Braque, Gris, and anyone else who took up the cubist exploration of forms on a 2-D plane.  After a long history of artists attempting to show the space of the figure in the plane, and long after Western artists resolved it with perspective, the new use of space by Picasso et al. was a worthy accomplishment philosophically as well as visually.

I agree with this line of thought; no debate here.

I find that the problem is how the same art historians will gladly pass on artwork by Escher.  "Clever illustration," "sophomoric," "...the kind of art you leave in your 20's," are typical remarks about his drawings and prints.

Well, it is time to re-visit Escher and Art; it even causes one to ask the question "What is Art?"  A very big question, certainly, but relevant to understanding.

Another question is whether Escher contributed anything new to Art.  A third might be how he measures up to other artists in his time period.

The broadest question is the biggest one, and "What is Art?" is among the important philosophical questions.  Of course, this means that there are many responses with no one reply known as definitive.

Is Art the re-presentation of another vision of reality or the vision of another reality?  That is my definition, and to this Escher's work fits.  Granted, that leaves room for a lot of other work that is not meant as Fine Art.

And yet, if Fine Art also means important ideas about both Art and the world, then I think Escher's use of space in the plane is as sophisticated as anything the cubists imagined.

Of course, this would answer the second question as to a contribution to the visual arts.

The last question, just how does Escher measure up to other artists of his time period, is tricky.  The one artist whom I can think influenced Escher with certainty is Oscar Reutersvard.   Reutersvard is little known today, but though younger than Escher his impossible objects likely played an important part in Escher's development.  As much so, I think, as did the Italian landscapes and Moorish tilework.

Reutersvard remains the outstanding crafter of impossible objects, http://im-possible.info/english/art/reutersvard/, but I think Escher gave them life.  I say this without diminishing the achievements of Reutersvard's imagination.

In this light, Escher's drawings of people and landscapes early on became part of the foundation for his imagination along with Moorish tessellation and Reutersvard's creation.

Nice rhyme, but fine words butter no parsnips.  Just how do I think Escher measures up to the big-name artists of the 20th century?

I know that I am in the minority, but I believe that Escher's art reflected the big questions as much as did the work of the cubists, dadaists, surrealists, abstract expressionists, and pop artists.  Philosophically, they are mathematical paradoxes about the human environment.  Visually, they intrigue me as much as other 20th century work.  They cause me to think not only about the world in which I live but also about what it means to make Art.

And isn't that at least a part of what Art is about?