On May 22, 2007, at 12:17 PM, Reid Wood wrote:
Dragonfly-
>You've opened up a potentially year-long discussion with this first
paragraph.
Yeah, that would be nice! I really do love to have these conversations.
>A question - you said as a young adult, you didn't get the work at
the Whitney. Do you now (I'm sure you still fit in the young adult
category)?
LOL, yes, I am not quite yet 50, so still young, eh? As for
"getting" the art at the Whitney, well, umm, some I get, some I
don't. A couple of years back I was able to attend the biennial there
and saw all kinds of wonderful odd art. The place was packed and so
it was heard to see much of anything really. I recall a wall piece
that were words taped formed by burned matches taped on the wall. I
actually liked this and even thought about doing something like that
as mail art.
> Yes, Tintoretto, Bellini, Raphael, Leonard and the like created
some beautiful paintings. Of that group I like some of those artists
better than others and some of their paintings better than others.
Even at that time there were artists who felt that they needed to
break away from the style of the High Renaissance, and so you have
styles like Mannerism. It seems by the artists you mentioned and the
more contemporary examples from the Whitney you alluded to you place
a high value on illusionistic rendering as a determinant for what is
art. Is that true, or am I reading too much into your examples?
I was just siting some of those incredible artists I was able to
view as a kid. My almost 46 year old self likes stuff more on the
contemporary side. Folks like the following wet my whistle and fan my
fires..
Christo
Helen Frankenthaler
Wiliem de Kooning
Richard Diebenkorn
Jim Dine
Red Grooms
Keith Harring
Louise Nevelson
Claes Oldenburg
Robert Rauschenburg
Mark Rothko
of course the list could go on and on, and let me not forget to
mention some of my other favorites below!
Lena Bartula -mixed media and installation artist
John Chiaromonte - mixed media artist
Alexandra Eldridge -mixed media artist
Cynthia Fusillo -mixed media and installation artist
Jorge Leyva -painter
K. Moss -collage, art dolls, beaded jewelry
Darlene Olivia McElroy -mixed media and collage
Cris Parks -fluid painting
