The Bad Art Cafe

Found in the Funny Papers: an art cartoon

Art Cartoon:

Non Sequitur by Wiley Ink in the Chicago Tribune, 1.30.08

a group of people are standing around a musuem gallery looking at pictures that appear to be cartoon versions of old masters (Wiley's a pretty good draftsman).

The box introducing the cartoon says:

Art Appreciation in the Laptop Generation

One guy standing there, looking at the "old master" painting says: "HMM....I wonder what software they used to get that brush stroke effect"

French Realists - Charles Meryon (1821 - 1868)

For my first lesson in Moderist, I picked Charles Meryon, a French Realist - that is, the art movement that hated the artificial look of the Classical movement (read: David, Ingres, whom I both love), for a look at the real look at the world called the industrial revolution and how ugly it was. He loved the Paris slums before they were all torn down mid 19th century.

(Why were those slums torn down? a lesson for another day.)

Meryon was mentally ill, not unlike Van Gogh, and died in an asylum at Charenton (the asylum which was a setting for the play Marat/Sade), but his draftmenship and personal vision made him one of a kind, even in a city and time of great artists and photographers.

I picked "La Morgue". It's a big morgue. Cremation must have existed because there is lots of black smoke coming out of the towering chimneys.

Meryon was color blind, and worked in black and white, so his work, etchings, were a cross between painting and photography.

Yes, I mean to put my assignments on here. But I'll try to stop myself before I start with the stuffy art historian sound.

Remember, no one has to die of Museum fatique, or fall asleep infront of an art book. That's the philosophy of the Bad Art Cafe, and I can't forget it either.

News Item: Market booming despite economy

A crowd stands in front of a painting (reproduced in the newspaper in black and white) of a childlike painting of a very scary monsterlike looking man, huge teeth, squared shoulders, big black wraps around his hands, a pair of shorts, and feet turned out, with the toes looking like they're thumping up and down. The caption: "Jean-Michel Basquiat's 'Sugar Ray Robinson' sold for $6.5 million in November at Christies's."

Is that right?

It seems the art market follows the stock market with its ups & downs by about 6 months behind. Everyone in New York City is a billionaire; they do not feel any economy crunch.

American artists are selling at all time high, included JMB (above) Warhol, Rothko, Haring.

"The most money is chasing these modern and contemporay names, and that just what's in fashion really." quotes Mr. Ian Peck, CEO of the art-finance firm Art Capital Group.

A Class in Art

Me, clarie, proprotress of the Bad Art Cafe is brushing up on her art theory. I'm taking a class in Moderism. Really. I'm really being instructed, not merely giving you my version of the art story.

Well, you will still get my version & vision. People read this weblog; people whom I suspect are art history students, and need a break from the professor. I know I did. I remember Greek vases, and spending hours and slides on them. (we can run through that later, if you like)

So it must be because the real art theory in real terms is, well, scary. Why not be creative with creativity? The only art critic I can read who does this is Matthew Collins. Which is why he's quoted here, in this weblog a lot. In fact, I just ordered a new book from him off my Amazon wish list.

But we will distill much of the knowledge from my new course into this space, because that's what we're here for. The real thing. And the funny thing.

Meanwhile, from another one of my favorite art texts: The Annotated MONA LISA, a crash course in Art History . . . . a list of "Artspeak" pg.89

Relief a projecting design carved or modeled on a flat background

Perspective a technique for representing space and 3-D objects on a flat surface

Figurative stle that accurately represents figures, animals, or other rcongnizable objects

Graphic art on a flat surface base on drawing and use of line (as opposed to color or relief); especially applied to printmaking

Plane a flat, 2-D surface with a defined bounary

Static arrangement of shapes, lines, colors that reduces visual movement when looking at a picture (opposite of dynamic)

Flat without illusion of volume or depth; also pure color lacking gradations of tone

Complementary opposite colors on the color wheel - orange/blue, for instance

Values degrees of light or dark in a color

Monumental pertaining to monuments; heroic scale. (we have lots of these in Chicago)

Hay, I'm just trying to get you through a museum without going to sleep on a nearby bench!

ps. the instructor warns not to rely on sites like mine, because we might not have the reall art information.
Well, ok.

There might be reviews ahead for the "real" artsites.

Amazon Wish List

click on the Amazon Wish List to see a list of books I recommend for your art library. this list will be added to time and again

and maybe a podcast too . . . .

and maybe the sistine chapel some day too . . . .

From Zelligg, Artist & Writer

Yes, of course, the light. Even night is day without light. Once you start looking at, for, into, with light, there is no going back. No, haven't shown but I haven't been here long, it's small and really loves putting totally representational stuff around town, There are a few loft-y types with huge pop-impressionist stuff. I never like to do the same thing twice so I have painting, assemblage, a "doll house," leaves and pods and toys and paint for a coral reef (not my plan...you know how that goes...that's the funnest part for me in addition to "I...guess, yes, I think, um, yeah! it's done!"

I love b&w photography, shibui, texture in objects so macro they are abstract. I have the top of a motor cycle windshield that will become something someday. And a 4' glass shard from a body shop. So I collect rusty door knobs and hubcaps and broken glass with bullet holes and then I have to make something to make room for me!

see Zelligg's writing at:

http://www.writerscafe.org/writers/Zelligg/

Art in the Music Halls of Paris

a review of Colette's The Vagabond

The opening of the story in the dressrooms of the music hall smell like rancid grease paint, dust, sweat of performers. There's only few people you can relate to, since everyone comes & goes in the music hall, so why make friends?

But the music hall is good place for Renee Nere, a pantomime, who performs half nude in see-through silks, and gets slammed to ground on purpose by her mentor, Brague, who treats her like an amateur: but this a joke between them. Renee is no amateur. At 33 she can out perform anyone

Calling Artists to Write to Bad Art Cafe

any artist with an original take on his/her artististic process please email me & I'll post it here with your link.

please write creatively, that's all I ask!

A Short List of Art Crit Books Not Well Known (but are written by great writers)

Frank O'Hara's The Art Chronicles 1954 - 1966, about the 50's painters he knew so well, Pollock, Kline, Motherwell, Rivers, et al

Frank was a great writer, also one of the most informed art critics of his time, who took the part of the artist, not the mean spiritedness of most critics of his time.

Frank O'Hara's Standing Still & Walking in New York. a kind of off the cuff writing about art not seen in most art crit. he spends his time walking around with an eye for all the "new" artists (see above) and how they fit into the "new" art. an art crit book, but one you've never read before. hard to find, out of print, but worth the look also an interview of O'Hara by Edward Lucie-Smith - big name art critic

How Bruno Once Sold a Painting

it was an easy sell

Bruno met a yuppie married woman in the chic part of town who wanted an original painting in unstretched canvas with color satuaration, and maybe flowers.

this was Bruno's specialty.

so she painted the painited to order

then realized she didn't get the lady's name, phone number or address, she just had a general idea where she lived.

so Bruno picked the block they met on and went door to door to all these new row houses, and asked, did you order a painting, did you order a painting, did you order a painting, for a bout an hour.

finally, she located the lady in question, brought the painting over, unrolled it at her feet, and was paid $1,000.00 for it on the spot.

and just in case anyone cares, Art Chicago is becoming a whole big new affaire this year. the tickets are $20.00, not $15.00, but there are more exhibits and dealers to visit, which I can't imagine, as Art Chicago, though great, makes my head hurt with just one exhabition. more later. it's in late April