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Albright Knocks
Chris Ashley describes a frustrating visit to the Albright-Knox museum in Buffalo here. Seems the museum is, um, fudging on the terms of its gift of Clyfford Still paintings:
When I was ready to see the Stills I asked someone at the desk where his paintings are.Also amusing is the press release for an upcoming show there called "Extreme Abstraction," featuring Linda Besemer, David Reed, David Batchelor, and Katharina Grosse, which also consists of "Extreme Fundraising Events," an "Extreme Dinner," and an "Extreme After Party." There is an extreme space commitment, as well--Chris says large parts of the collection were unviewable while the museum prepared for it."Oh, yeah, we showed him a few months ago."
"You mean there are none on display right now?"
"No, we just showed them."
"Doesn't that violate the conditions of his gift, that a portion be displayed in a dedicated room at all times?"
(Shrug) "I don't know anything about that."
Huh? On the web page regarding the Albright's Stills it says, "According to the terms of the gift, the paintings must be shown in their own room, all of the time, and never loaned to other museums." OK!
Afterthought on Clyfford Still: I kind of like those craggy, ultraserious paintings, which I saw at the A-K in '94, and the "stoner concentration" Still paid to his edges, as one painter I know put it. Hey, someone has to defend that holy-terror-even-in-death.
Finished the piece started over the July 4 weekend, finally. That's it above, posing with a chair. Below is the back, showing the strips of canvas-colored, gummed cloth tape that hold all the paper pieces together. The buckyball is an Epson print of a scan of a transparency of a handpainted buckyball I made years ago. The background xerox sheets are an Op art-like pattern I drew in MSPaintbrush--they would make a continuous wavy field if trimmed and arranged in a grid.
Bombings in London
My condolences to all impacted by this tragic event. Billmon has some fond things to say about London, but fearing the inevitable making-it-worse by the media, advises his American readers:
The next few days would probably be a good time to stay away from the TV. On top of the televised gore and the stunned faces of the survivors, we'll have to endure the canned Churchillian rhetoric of Messrs. Blair and Bush. Blitzes will be remembered; blood, sweat and tears promised, ultimate victory predicted. The babbling heads of cable news will babble even louder. Conservative con artists will figure the angles and work out the attack lines to use against the liberals -- whatever it takes to drown out the fact that, nearly four years after 9/11, Bin Ladin still lives and Al Qaeda is back in business. Mission unaccomplished.That's a good statement but puts too much emphasis on the al Qaeda threat. (The implacable Islamofascist enemy.) The problem is the cycle of violence we're in because many in the developing world believe we're trying to extract their natural resources by force, stomping all over local traditions to do so. The Iraq war as a response to "terrorism" does nothing to assuage this, especially with the stories about Iraqi oil field maps spread out on the table during Cheney's energy task force meetings. The conversation we should be having is "Are we taking their resources by force and crapping all over their local traditions, so we can lead our wonderful lives?" and if so, "Isn't terrorism in our cities an expected consequence of that?" And if this sounds like America-hating to you, sorry.