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Julian Hatton Gives an Artist Talk! And Your Mid-Summer Reading List
 
For a while now I’ve wanted to write a post about how to deliver a good artist’s talk when you have a show at a gallery or museum, but obviously I just haven’t gotten around to it. I was reminded of the subject Saturday afternoon when Julian Hatton spoke before a small group at Ylise Kessler Gallery in Santa Fe, where he has a number of large and small works on display, along with sculptures and collages by Kay Harvey.

His talk was a model of just-enough information, inspiring just-enough questions. Hatton tooled through his early career, covering his shift from landscape to abstraction, from plein-air to working in the studio from a vocabulary now stored largely in his imagination. He’s a painter I’ve followed for about 20 years, and I’m always enchanted by the freshness of the work. (To read more about him, go to the Under the Radar profile I wrote a couple of years back.)


Julian Hatton with Compass (2016-17), oil and mixed media on panel

The way in which the artist first came to my attention is also noteworthy. I was on staff at ARTnews at the time, and received a postcard for one of his earliest shows at Elizabeth Harris Gallery in New York.  The image was intriguing because the art historian manqué in me responded to some almost archaic quality about the painting, which to my eyes was reminiscent of early American Modernists like Arthur Dove and Charles Burchfield, with a whisper of Bonnard thrown into the mix (Hatton says none of these were influences). But the larger point is, that postcard spurred me to write a review for the magazine. And I started thinking: Hey, kids, stop sending your images via email to dealers. Get some of those old-fashioned postcards printed up and put them in the mail to prospects and collectors. I so seldom get anything from galleries or artists in my p.o. box anymore that when I do I pay much closer attention than to the pile-up that accrues in my email in-box.

Now I realize that summer is half over, but you should still have plenty of hammock time to tackle a few notable books. I’m a big fan of novels that make the art world and artists come alive, especially when the characters and setting are credible. So my favorites include Self-Portrait with Boy by Rachel Lyon, described at greater length here, and the three summed up in the early days of the site: Geoff Dyer’s Jeff in Venice/Death in Varanasi; Michael Cunningham’s By Nightfall; and Claire Messud’s The Woman Upstairs.

If nonfiction’s your preference, you all know how I feel about Mary Gabriel’s Night Street Women, which I reviewed for The Wall Street Journal and then subsequently interviewed the author here. And just recently I wrote about a terrific new biography of Alfred Stieglitz for a site called Riot Material (where do people come up with these names?)  Anyone with an interest in Stieglitz, O’Keeffe, photography, or American art in the first half of the 20th century will be enthralled. Come to think of it, anyone who enjoys a good biography will appreciate Phyllis Rose’s agile storytelling and sharp insights into photography.


The mesmerizing dealer/photographer who captured O’Keeffe, in more ways than one. Alfred Stieglitz early in his career
 
And now the news from members…..
 
My neighbor Jeff Baker has an excellent show at the Taos Center for the Arts in Taos, NM, through July 30. “I've  become  focused on abstract moments, concerned with the patterns, colors and compositions between the easily recognizable, and my practice has become much more technique driven,” he writes on his website. “While embracing photography’s remarkable technological advances, I adhere to its philosophical underpinnings, giving me great confidence in my direction.” The photo below, he adds, was taken at an ATM booth in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, in 2017 and is “a continuation on the theme of loss of identity in the city.” There will be an artist's talk at the TCA  on July 18 at 4 p.m.


Jeff Baker, She’s Waiting (2017), archival pigment print on 300 lb. cotton rag mounted to dibond, edition 1/5, 24 by 36 inches


Chandrika Marla is part of a show called “Bold” at the O’Hanlan Center for the Arts in Mill Valley, CA, through July 25th.  This is, she says, an exhibition that “explores bold use of color,” and it’s curated by Robert Green of Robert Green Fine Arts, a gallery that “exhibits primarily painterly abstract, expressive work by painters that thoroughly take advantage of the sensually evocative nature of color and form.”


Chandrika Marla, For Our Lives (2019), acrylic on canvas, 40 by 40 inches

 
Ellen Jouret-Epstein is in two shows this summer. Through August 24, she is part of “Celebrating Color” at Womensork Gallery in Poughkeepsie, NY. And she has work in “The Fantastic Drawing Show” at Joyce Goldstein Gallery in Chatham, NY (through August 17). There’s no information about either show on the gallery websites, but if you’re upstate, I’m sure they’re worth a visit (why do galleries even bother with websites if they can’t cough up a few sentences? I ask peevishly).


Ellen Jouret-Epstein, New Alphabet (2019), printed paper collage and colored pencil, 20.5 by 28.5 inches
 

Through August 3, Jill Bedgood is showing “Cantos of Light," a series of thoughtfully re-imagined books, at Rudolph Blume Fine Art in Houston, TX. “The front and backs of the book contrast the simple and austere in conversation with obsessive excess: the passionate heart is equivalent to the brain’s use of reason,” she says in her statement for the show.  “The objects reference significant aspects of heritage or moments in life. The cast relief mementos provide immortality, reminding one of the weight of possessions and baggage of memories, as well as the transience and temporality of life versus these precious objects.”


Jill Bedgood, Book Jewelry .02 (2019), cast Hydrocal with powdered graphite, 6 by 4 by 1 inches

 
Max Baseman, one of the bright new lights on the Santa Fe scene, is showing work by Stuart Arends in “Five White” at 5. Gallery through mid-August.  “Arends’ sculptures are concise and exact meditations on line and form, with veil-like colors layered by wax, pencil and paint,” says the website for the Lannan Foundation, which has been a supporter of his work and represents him in its collection. “The artist has said of these ingredients: ‘I look on the paint I use like blood, the wax like flesh, the wood and steel like bone.’”


Stuart Arends, Kid Block 23 (2014), oil and wax on found wood, 1-3/4 inches cubed


Two Vasari21 members, Carol Kunstadt and Marieken Cochius, both denizens of the Hudson Valley in New York State, are featured in “Natural Inclinations” at ArtBar Gallery in Kingston, NY, through July 27. “We met showing at the small works show curated by Jack Shainman at the Washington Square East gallery in the early aughts,” says Cochius. “The connection in our works we felt then is still here. A tension between what is present and what cannot be touched continues to be the most consistent theme in my work. There are no boundaries, everything is in flux and patterns are temporary, yet snapshots of detected networks and systems inspire me to catch the sensuality of the immaterial.” Says Kunstadt of her contributions: “My works on/of paper and book arts often invoke a metaphysical quality of contemplation and timelessness. My work often references antique books, bookplates and artifacts—deconstructing  paper and text and using it in metaphorical ways. Through the manipulation and the exploration of the materials, history, memory, and time merge in a hybrid form.”


Marieken Cochius, Winnipeg, pastel, charcoal, graphite, ink on handmade paper,13.5 by 9 inches


Carole Kunstadt, Pressing On No. 102, antique sad iron, repurposed fur from hand muff, paper (pages from 1791 by Hannah More), 5 by 4 by 2.5 inches

 
Through August 4, Lily Prince’s show “There There” is at the 11 Jane Street Gallery Art Center in Saugerties, NY. “Prince's vibrant paintings respond to nature with distinctive gestural calligraphy and vivid, expressive color that explores the pulsating patterns and rhythmic harmony in nature,” says the announcement. The title "There There’" is a reference to and a refutation of Gertrude Stein’s tart observation about Oakland, CA: "there is no there there." Says Prince: "Through travels and longings I’ve found there is indeed a there there, which is comforting in these times of societal and environmental devastation."


Lily Prince, Lago di Como 38 (2019), acrylic on canvas, 36 by 36
inches

Jane Barthes is part of a show up now in Chicago in the foyer of the Olympia Center (the Nieman Marcus Building) called “Molecules of Architecture,” and recently took part in “Landworks 1969-2019” at the Long Beach Island Foundation for the Arts and Sciences, on Long Beach Island, NJ. I’m sorry I missed posting about the latter because it sounded truly interesting (but why so short? It was on for only two weeks and closed on July 14). "In this year’s LandWorks, we have invited a talented group of contemporary artists whose work builds upon the foundations conceptualized by Earthworks artists,” said the announcement for the show. “50 years later, this exhibit connects the significance of these early artists to current themes that continue to influence contemporary art and the relationship to site-specific installation art, environmental subject matter, experimental mediums, and urban landscapes. Many artists place environmentalism at the forefront of their practice, each with unique involvements and interesting ways of addressing these concerns.” Other artists in the exhibition included Dennis Oppenheim, Richard Serra, Christo, Sol LeWitt, Michael Heizer, and Phillip Glass. Notably all guys (where was Nancy Holt?), but I trust Jane lent an appropriately female and contemporary voice to the mix. You can still catch her paintings at the Olympia Center through August 31. See one in the installation shot below. If you’re in the Chicago area, you can also check out the reception on July 25, 4.30 to 7 p.m.
 

 

And that’s about it for the week, my friends.

But one interesting aside: I wanted very much to review an excellent show about art and opera at Site Santa Fe, called “Bel Canto,” which was regrettably billed as examining “themes of race, gender, and class” (this was not my immediate take on it), but my editor at the Wall Street Journal turned it down because he says he is sick of all the damn politically correct art out there. I think a backlash is coming. So be aware that not everything has to be pegged to the devastation of the environment or the inequities of society or the sheer godawful unfairness of life. Art can, y’know, be interesting and worthwhile just for art’s sake.

Jolly cheers,



Top: Jeff Baker, Motherwell (2014), archival pigment print on 300-lb. cotton rag, 30 by 20 inches. He says of this photo: "In most of my works, you’ll see layer upon layer of posters, paint and stickers that have been torn or ripped off. Here, only one waybill has been peeled off a black painted plywood barrier. On the left border is a hint of safety glass. In the mostly negative space, a circular brush stroke and edge framing create the tension in the image."

 
 
 
 
 
 



 
 

 
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