Studio: Letha Wilson

Partially Buried, 2009, c-print on wood, 24" x 24" x 3"

Untitled View, 2009, c-print, aqua resin, paint, 16" x 20" x 8"
Sailor's Delight, 2009, c-print, wood, aqua resin, paint, 48" x 10" x 45"

Prism-Pyramid, 2009, xerox transfer, graphite, c-print on paper, 22" x 22"

Stained Glass Acadia, 2009, c-print, 24" x 20"

Golden Cairn, 2009, spray paint and c-print, 14" x 11"

Walden Pond Advent, (in progress), cut and folded c-print, 11" x 11"

I had the chance to stop by Letha Wilson's studio and check out what's she's been doing lately. Here a a few pics from my visit. Check out her show Lines Through the Wilderness, which opens at Hofstra University's Rosenbeg Gallery on Nov. 11 and runs through Dec. 14. Also see her website for more.

Sara Greenberger Rafferty

Frog in the Pond, 2008, C-print, 14" x 11", Edition of 5, 2 A.P.

I had the chance to catch up with Sara Greenberger Rafferty and do an interview...she has been doing some fantastically unique work over the past few years. I really enjoyed her show at the Kitchen and am looking forward to her new show. Tears opens at Rachel Uffner Gallery this Wednesday, the 9th and runs through October 25. Don't miss it!

Jon Lutz: How long have you made work focusing on many kinds of performers and/or entertainment?

Sara Greenberger Rafferty: My work has been about performers -- or more accurately performance -- since I was an undergrad working on a project dealing with social class. Early on, having made a pact with myself (which I sort of later broke) never to make an original image of a person's body or face, I depicted the performance of self exclusively through objects, props, and pre-existing images -- stand-ins, if you will. When I first moved to New York, I did a few performances as a retailer named Sophie Spar, where I sold artworks disguised as products for $20 or less. I then began working on a project, which never fully materialized, about the cakewalk (a syncopated music and dance heavily associated with minstrelsy).

Installation view of BANANAS at The Kitchen, 2009
Photograph by Adam Reich

JL: When did this begin as an interest for you?

SGR: I didn't take on magicians or comedians -- explicit entertainers -- as a subject until 2001 or 2002. Perhaps surprisingly, this came by way of my interest in the history and imagery of the cakewalk and the American fair (e.g. 1893 Worlds' Columbian Exposition in Chicago and more modest county fairs across the country). I started to become interested in the iconography and space of performance such as the fair, the stage, and the screen. At about the same time I began collecting comedy LPs and re-awakening my obsession with comedians, which began in my childhood. I read everything I could about Harry Houdini, Fatty Arbuckle, Buster Keaton, Phyllis Diller, Lenny Bruce, and Dick Gregory. In a sense, I have been sort of working my way through the history of performance or recorded performance, and now, with my new series of color photographs, I am focused more specifically on television.

While my work uses performers and entertainers as imagery, the theme my work is not really entertainment. I think things like stages, microphones, comedians, props, and backdrops may be constant threads in my work, though because I don't see my work as being about entertainment, I don't think it will be necessary to always use these forms.

Cardboard Spar, 2004

JL: Was there a particular work that opened things up for you?

SGR: One of the first works I made in this vein was a cardboard version of a comedy club in my studio. It wasn't particularly sophisticated but the handmade quality and the fact that it was literally coming off a wall became very important to me because it wasn't full installation nor was it sculpture, but some sort of elaborate wall work, like a very deep relief. This work is very reminiscent of Rupert Pupkin's basement talk show studio in Martin Scorsese's King of Comedy. Scorsese's work was actually very influential to the works I was making at the time, specifically The King of Comedy and Raging Bull.

Shavings, 2007, C-print, 14" x 11", Edition of 6

JL: Do you find yourself attracted to entertainers of particular eras?

SGR: I definitely relate best to performers of previous eras. As I said, it seems I'm working my way from the Civil War to the Bicentennial. I am not aiming to be nostalgic at all: it's just easier for me to process the visual material of the past, and use references to a certain era of photography to speak about more contemporary issues. Also, the people -- or people as characters -- I am using as imagery represent the canon of comic personas and documentation (television, photography, film). If I were to venture a guess, I would say this tendency arises from the fact that with 'historical' material I can have a more detached relationship with the primary sources, I can view them and analyze them outside of their time and context. Whereas, if I made a work using images of say Mary Lynn Rajskub or Dave Chappelle or Zach Galafianakis it would be more difficult for me to make it my own through transformation, because of contemporary cultural context and associations. But this could be a cop out.

Vicki, 2009, C-print, 24" x 20", edition of 5

JL: One of the most interesting things about your work is what is not happening or playing out as you might expect. Microphones and spotlights have no subjects, pies hit a wall in (lieu of a face), an empty Houdini case, and 2D, abstracted narratives. Is there a portrait of a “lost art” going on here or any critique or acknowledgement of shifts in manners of performance?

SGR: Thank you. I think of a lot of my work as playing out as a performance of non-performance. This could be interpreted in a number of ways, among them the performance of the everyday character, the way we perform in our daily lives or that the non-performance is related more to a non-compliance, a refusal to do what one is supposed to do. In some cases, the 'wrong' object is performing and in a lot of cases the figure is totally absent. I think ideas about damage, repair, obfuscation, failure, injury, humiliation, abjection, pathos, and humor are fairly important to my work. I depict a lot of 'benign violence' which would be the pies, the punches, and my new series which could be called spills.

JL: You’ve done a lot of work specifically about stand-up comedy. Do you see a connection between being a stand-up comic and being an artist?

SGR: I'm sure I could make this connection, however, my use of stand-up has to do purely with aesthetics and ethos. I like the aesthetics of stand-up comedy as a model for my art-making: up against the wall, pared down, masculine, one-person scale, engaging and not obtuse, only alienating by design, etc. Ideally I would like to make work that operates as good stand-up comedy does, something that is engaging but has the ability to deal with real shit, something that is crafted but not too flashy, something human scale but could engage a whole room. I have always been struck also by the connection of body to content in stand-up and how the comic's body (gender, race, stature, age, etc.) comes to bear on the meaning of the jokes.

Pies with Color Studies, 2008, C-print, 16" x 20", Edition of 6

JL: I’m curious about the process used in your 2D work. Much of it is photo-based, but what are you are actually photographing? Are you creating your own “originals” of different mediums?

SGR: All of my work is grounded in photography. Even sculptures I make generally have a definitive frontal view and I am always thinking about photographs. Most of my 2D work is in fact straight photography of "props" as I call them. I started by simply making drawings of photographs and framing the drawings flush as photos are usually framed. These were a type of re-photography to me because they were mechanical reproductions of the most basic (and time consuming) variety.

Then I started making the punch photographs, which were gouache reproductions of photographs on gessoed paper. I originally thought I would frame these and exhibit them as drawings as well, because I thought it would be really funny to have a one-of-a-kind work that was ruined or negated. When I tested this out, I found that the punched drawings were generally too pathetic. (As an aside: my work really needs to evoke pathos without actually being pathetic. I am constantly trying to make sure the work looks provisional without actually being so.) I

studio shot
Shuffle (Ace Five), 2006, C-print, 16" x 20", Edition of 6

decided to put the punched drawings on my copy stand, light them, and print them as photographs. This turned out to be the correct decision because the re-re-photo added a trompe l'oeil effect and also a shift in scale that turned out to be crucial. In more recent photographs, I have used a combination of found photography, Photoshopping, photography of props in my studio, and other straight photographs. In my newest photographs, all of the props were made in the studio with very modest supplies and then scanned and digitally manipulated. It's funny because I described my new work recently as "portraits of comedians," which ends up sounding like very different work than it is.

Elizabeth Blomster

Elizabeth Blomster is a Brooklyn-based artist and blogger. Check out her website here and see my interview with her below:

Photo Shape, 2004; Fine Pen Shape, 2005;
Shape Lines, 2007; Shape Snow, 2006

JL: Your work is very diverse, but there is a strong attention to materials that exists in almost everything you do. Have you ever been a painter per se, or did you earlier works always have this similar materiality/constructed element?

EB: I made some paintings with paint in undergraduate school that were still lives and models but quickly moved from using paints to gesso with photocopy transfers, a process akin to printmaking. I prefer to be a bit removed and act as a channel for the materials. This probably explains why I continue to be involved with printmaking, a roller making the mark instead of my hand.

Parameters xv detail, 2009

JL: How do you go about choosing what you will use? Are the materials found, purchased etc.?

EB: The materials are found and purchased. I choose things based on their capabilities- color, texture, fluidity or similarity to something else. For example, I mentioned making "bridge work" or "twins" where one piece is connected to the one before it or making a piece to connect two finished pieces. When thinking like this, I look for materials that mimic elements from the other pieces but I use the word “mimic” loosely. The fun in this system is that it’s structured, feels personalized and also promotes variety.

Pink Stack, 2007, screenprint monotype; Paper Shapes Group, 2007

JL: Why not just use a hard material like a rock or concrete when making a rock, instead of paper?

EB: I wasn’t actually trying to make rocks, I was turning some flat shapes from my prints into 3-D objects (but they ended up looking like rocks). However, the question still applies because I'd be unlikely to make rocks from rock. I prefer dualities or opposites-heavy/light, hard/soft, backward/forwards, natural/man-made. I guess I like integrating dissimilar elements and observing the amount that one thing differs from the next.

JL: What is gained here?

EB: What is gained here is amusement and a way for me to generate work. An open-ended system that I enjoy and can return to. The selection of materials I choose is personal, specific to me.They are disparate but imitate each other in order to form connections. Paper becomes wood, wood becomes sand, sand becomes glass and glass becomes tape. There is a term in psychology called mirroring. It’s when people make each other feel comfortable by acting similar like imitating someone's tone of voice or movements. It's a way to create kinship. The imitation or mirroring that happens in my work is a way to make all the unrelated materials fit together and communicate.

String Photogram, 2004

JL: In this case, why do you think you might lean towards making abstract works, as opposed to using figuration to hint more directly at this “kinship” and communication?

EB: This is a hard question. I guess I like the contrast of using inanimate objects to describe a human activity. My parents were/are collectors of antiques and the business of observing, evaluating and even anthropomorphizing stuff is a familiar one. But mostly, figuration would be too similar to the thought process I use for everyday living. I enjoy the departure from the known. I don’t think I explained this very well but it boils down to freedom.

Frame Wrapped with Tape, 2008; Striped Paper, 2008

JL: Are there pertinent art historical precedents in your work?

EB: Fluxus would be a historical precedent because I work with a lot of different materials that are brought together by my world view and I’m also wrapped up in simplicity over complexity, humor and absurdity.

Mark Schoon

Here's a sample of a great new work by Mark Schoon entitled Two Rooms. It's meant to be seen as a large scale, dual projection, so I suggest watching it on full screen. His process is not exactly what you think it might be, but I'll leave a note in the comments about that...more of his works here.

Ned Colclough

Tug of Love (detail); Read Your Mind, 18" x 24"; Florida Room (detail)













Souvenir, 22" x 28"; All the Bass, 18" x 24"


Florida Room; Souvenir, 22" x 28"; Tug of Love; Read Your Mind, 2007, 18" x 24"

Pacific, 19" x 23"

Theme from Planets and detail

Anything at all

When I first got a peek at Ned Colclough’s studio a couple of years back, there were a few paintings on the wall, pinned up photos, and various parts that would become these constructions. I recently had a chance to stop by again and the room is now filled with finished pieces. Maybe it’s because there’s no space for more, but they seem to represent his first major body of work. I'm really into the the sculptures because they are deliberately precarious and oddly rythmic. They pivot, lean, brace, and balance with nothing but friction and gravity keeping them together. Keep an eye out for his work…

Carrie Pollack

Abbreviated Natural Experience, 2004, oil on canvas, 18" x 18"

Just a little while back, I posted a few works by Carrie Pollack from Call & Response, which featured some other artists who have appeared here. I've since gotten to see more of her works and had the chance to do an interview with her. See her website here and the interview below. Also make sure to check out her new works in Perception as Object, which opens this Thursday, the 8th at Monya Rowe Gallery.

JL: The most impressive aspect of your work is its understated quality. They are often simple, precise, with minimal color. There seems to be a singular idea explored and they rarely have an all-over or painterly quality. If just hearing this description, one might think the works are literal or obvious, but they aren’t. Is this something that emerges with deliberation or is it more of an intuitive response to a source?

CP: I think (and hope) it is a bit of both. My goal is to make a painting with as little as possible, almost stopping short to keep it open. I want them to be quiet, slow and a little unclear. I think when this happens it becomes more of a conversation then a statement, maybe somewhere in-between deliberation and intuition. I react to specific things in the world. These things have similar qualities so the choice of source is deliberate. Once I have this catalogue of images I know I want to work with I just sit and look at them for weeks. Through the looking at these images I begin to see other things at play, I think I am intuitively responding and arranging images at that point.

JL: What is you’re impression of these 2004 works, looking back at them now?

CP: They seem far away. I think they contain the same thinking but the new works are made from looking at my own photos and the older work was made by using found images. I have more of a personal relationship with the source I use now and that seems important at the moment. I think I was really trying to make a good painting then and now I am more interested in making a painting that might be a good painting.

Cloud, 2008, oil and pencil on canvas, 16" x 20"

JL: Since the two earlier works, you have developed a kind of “frame” around your images where parts of the canvas are left blank. What purpose do you see this serving, if any?

CP: My work always seemed to be like a small snapshot of something larger, or a close up of something that extends outside of the painting. With the newer paintings I wanted to play with that idea of the edge, or alluding to something happening that you couldn’t see.

JL: What happened since 2004 that allowed that frame to emerge?

CP: When I saw the first prints there were all of these smaller images on a large roll of canvas. When I stretched them and they never quite fit or stayed straight, I remember thinking that I wanted to play with that. I am also still working from source material but now it is mostly my own photographs that I take throughout the day. When I take a picture it becomes framed by the camera and a lot of the time I am taking fast photos so the edge happens on its own.

Metaphor, 2004, oil on linen, 18" x 18"

Foil, 2008, digital print and pencil on canvas, 18" x 24"

JL: Speaking of sources, I really like how you have a source page on your website. It’s cool because it looks like you often take directly from them as opposed to picking parts of them. Is this really the case?

CP: I decided to put that page on my website because people were curious about where the work was coming from. I thought that if I revealed those things people would start to see these things around them and then they wouldn’t ask where the work was coming from. They would see that it was part of a language that comes from the world. This was also a big reason to use the photos in the work itself and not just make paintings from images that no one would see. I wanted to bring the source into the work directly.

JL: How has this changed over the years?

CP: I used to just collect source from anywhere but now I have to take a picture of it. I like to have the photo and not a clipping of paper. I think it reduces the sources to all the same thing. They become a part of this big catalogue. I love Gerhard Richter’s ATLAS.


JL: What role, if any, do the various non-studio activities like studio visits, writing artists statements, teaching have in what you make?

CP: I am currently teaching painting and drawing at the U of Tennessee in Knoxville. The students have amazing thoughts and ideas and are always saying things that I have to think about. Having this time to work out ideas with other people in the studio has always helped me. The exchanges that take place with students or artist friends are so important. Making work is a way of communicating so being able to do this in any way helps to think through ideas. I love going to other peoples studios. You can tell a lot from how people set up their spaces, what they look at etc. I am also a big note taker. I am constantly writing down things I hear or read and this also help me figure things out.

Jess

Goddess... because... because, 1954, collage, 14” x 13”

Untitled (Konrad Lorenz), 1955, collage, 16" x 10"

A Cryogenic Consideration; Or, Sounding One Horn Of The Dilemma (Winter), 1980, collage, 48” x 72”

Another one of my favorite shows of the year...Jess @ Tibor de Nagy.

...I first learned of Jess on Anaba.

Call & Response: Carrie Pollack

Mirror, 2008, oil on canvas, 12" x 16", Diamonds, 2008, oil on canvas, 16 x 20

Fracture, 2008, digital print on canvas, 18" x 24", Betwixt, 2008, oil on canvas, 16" x 20"

Over the next week, I'm going to post a few images from each of the artist's in Call & Response, an exhibition curated by Gianna Commito at Kent State University. Unfortunately, I won't get a chance to see the show, but Jaime Keiter, of The Light Archive, took some pics. In case you're in or around Ohio, the show closes Nov. 21.

I started with Carrie Pollack because, as this is the first time I'm seeing her work, I'm really curious about what's she's doing. The press release says that she "photographs quiet, often 'accidental' occurrences in her Brooklyn neighborhood." These photos are then are printed or reproduced in paint on canvas. You can see more of her works here.

Jaime Gecker

I will do a typically Old Gold post and interview soon with Jaime Gecker. In the meantime, check out these fresh new works and her new website for many more. Also see her sculpture from The Longest Day and work in Perfect Strangers.


Renoir Times Two, 2008, ink jet photo,collage and spray paint on paper
12 ¼” x 8 7/8”
Geode, 2007, ink jet photo,collage and spray paint on paper, 4” x 6”
3 Steps, 2007, photo transfer and latex paint on canvas, 10" x 12"
Generation, 2007, polaroid film and collage, 4” x 4”
Ernestine, 2007, polaroid film and collage, 4” x 4”
Safari, 2008, photo transfer and latex paint on canvas, 12” x 16”

Ron Amstutz

Right Roads and Wrong Ways is the result of ten years of work for Ron Amstutz. His first solo show at Wallspace is centered around a video that is essentially a compilation of performances within self-constructed sets. These videos/performances are complemented by photographs that he takes during the production of the video. As for influences and references, the press release points to “structural film, Bauhaus theater, performance work of the 60's and 70's, video games and commercial studio photography,” but there are also nods to children's television, Duchamp, Charlie Chaplin, and of course, chair-wrestling. It's up until October 11.