The Bad Art Cafe

Andy Magnets

Andy Warhol Foudation for the Visual Arts, Inc. is now selling a million different low cost products with Andy work all over them.  one is magnet.  But there are: billfolds, women's clothes, watches, etc., etc.  I bought mine at the mall, as in a mall rat mall, at Spencers.  You should see the billfolds. 

somewhere out there andy is smiling.  he would love to see his work on billfords.  plastic, a little cheap, it would have thrilled him no end.

here's a quote from Andy:

"I always thought one was company, two was a crowd, and three was a party"

have a party.

There's Not Enough Art in Our Schools

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No Wonder People Think Martha Graham is a Snack Cracker.

Hardly a fitting legacy for the woman, who despite getting a late start at the positively elderly age of 17, became the mother of American interpretive dance.

With verve and nearly single-handedly, Martha Graham brought her dance style into the 20th century. She did nothing less than create an entirely new genre of dance, while shattering the expectations of audiences and critics alike with her percussive, angular movement style. . . . Her dances have been called “motion pictures for the sophisticated,” her theories on movement and kinesthetics are still vital today; and there is scarcely a dancer alive who doesn’t owe a huge dept to her sharp creative mind and fierce perfectionism.

And to think she could have made it her entire life without experiencing the arts. Just like so many kids today.

Each day, more and more of the arts are being completely drained from our children’s schools. . . .

Let art borrow some brain. It’ll return it in better condition.

Art. Ask for More.

(reprinted from copy about the Americans for the Arts Organization)

Goodbye Andy

News Item:

in today's Almanac (Chicago Tribune)
"In 1987, Pop Artist Andy Warhol died in New York at age 58"

I thought I'd post the lyrics to "Hello, It's Me", a heartbreaking song Lou Reed and John Cale wrote about Andy as Lou and John's final tribute on Songs for Drella; a fiction LP (1990)

Download it for Andy, Lou & John if you can, (but it works as a poem too):

Hello It's Me

Words and music: Lou Reed & John Cale

Andy it's me, haven't seen you in a while
I wished I talked to you more when you were alive
I thought you were self-assured when you acted shy
Hello it's me
I really miss you, I really miss your mind
I haven't heard ideas like that in such a long, long time
I loved to watch you draw and watch you paint
But when I saw you last I turned away
When Billy Name was sick and locked up in his room
You asked me for some speed, I though it was for you
I'm sorry that I doubted your good heart
Things always seem to end before they start
Hello it's me, that was a great gallery show
Your cow wallpaper and your floating silver pillows
I wish I paid more attention when they laughed at you
Hello it's me
"Pop goes pop artist," the headline said
"Is shooting a put-on, is Warhol really dead?"
You get less time for stealing a car
I remember thinking as I heard my own record in a bar
They really hated you, now all that's changed
But I have some resentments that can never be unmade
You hit me where it hurt I didn't laugh
Your Diaries are not a worthy epitaph
Oh well now Andy - guess we've got to go
I hope some way somehow you like this little show

I know it's late in coming but it's the only way I know
Hello it's me - goodnight Andy...
Goodbye, Andy

When I made a tape of Songs for Drella, after the end of this album, I started in with the Velvet Underground's "If She Ever Comes Now". You can download that one too.

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.

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/

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

POP Goes Pop Artist

There’s been a lot of shootings against authority figures in the news lately, but what about the attempted assignation of Andy Warhol on June 4, 1968 by Valerie Solanis?

a rose is a rose is a rose

she was known for being a political revolutionary, another famous art photographer's girlfriend on the side, and silent movie actress from italy, but what she really was, and what she really goes down in history for, is her art photography.

roses, mexico by tina modotti is one of her most famous photographs, and one of her earliest efforts.  she moved with edward weston to mexico & operated his photo studio, but what she really did was start taking photographs, even as she worked as his model.  roses, mexico (in phaidon's the photo book) is a portrait of roses looked at for their sculptural quality.  the many lines on the photograph are difficult to follow, and according to the text, it's a "typical purist picture of the 1920's".  meaning, I suppose, she was an artist who looked for purity in all she did, although the roses appear to be a little over grown, into the next stage of wilting after they bloomed.  they look pretty, but a little decadent, lush, but not fresh, and some critics goes as far as to say they represent the modotti/weston relationship at it's prime.

I'd like to think that the viewer is finding out about roses in the same way gertrude stein said a rose is a rose is a rose, that's a purist line from the 1920's too . . . .

yum yum the stars are out, patti at the planetarium performance artist, rock singer & poet

it was a minor, and a mirror, report on the patti smith group in april, 1978 issue of hit parader magazine by lisa robinson, (does anybody out there in blogland remember lisa robinson?) anyhow, patti was fully recovered from her accident the year before where her wild rock & roll singing style spun her off the stage and onto her head during a concert in tampa, fl. she was in traction for months. patti's in a photograph with her band, ivan kral, lenny kaye, et al, looking every inch the 'gothic crow' bill burroughs discribed her as, no makeup, long string black hair, skinny chick, ripped up clothing, long angular face, the total punk rock star female of the late 1970's. the night at the NYC plantruim with her band she said the stage people had a problem with them. "the museum peo;e were a bit taken back by us," quotes ms. smith. she was reciting an stage about rape, ('yum, yum the stars are out') that the stage guy tried to disconnect her mirophone, "but he couldn't," she smiled, "because I was using a cordless mike." lets hear it technology and failing censhorship tries, yeah. the museum people had a problem with the patti smith group, but reports lisa robinson, "on had at the front of the stage to cheer her on waqs group of patti's manically devoted fans who came to see her every show. they paid $35.00 a ticket ('that's half an unemployment check,' patti said) and patti was knocked out by their presense." patti, were'd stil knocked out your presents, happy birthday, madam crow

found

Found: a 10 year old copy of artforum in the basement

regular readers of this of the bad art cafe know some of the best research finds for this blog are mysteriously pulled out of the large unfinished basement of this house, meaning a lot of research was done years & years ago before I ever got started.

it was always a long shot dream to be an arts writer, but in 1994 - who knew this former starving beadinhg artist would be doing something so pretenious 10 years ago by thinking she could read copy of artforum magizine.  by the way, I couldn't - read it very well, or understand it very well, much less write coherently about it, because modern art is dreadfully encoded.  this is sort of like wearing mommy's ballgown as a four year old, and growing up to be a rich diva.  it's that much of stretch.

but I had a good reason to throw away 7 bucks on a magazine that could not be discerned at the time, and that's because it profiled a new york artist - no, not andy - who had just died earlier that year. an artist we have yet to examine on the bad art cafe blog.
donald judd (1928 - 1994) & to get your arms around a conceptual artist like judd is a mind fry.  he ain't easy, not a warm & fuzzy artist at all, yet very influencal.  still haven't done it; might start any day now.  judd started with boxes and ended with boxes. he was a philosophy major & major artist, and for some reason I threw away the magazine down in the basement for 10 years, only to reflect now why I loved this conceptual artist so much - steel boxes mounted on walls, everything called untitled, or stainless steel, eight parts, or vague like that.

there's another story about how I stole a picture of don judd out of the chicago liberary, but I'll tell ya that later . . . .