PUDDIN' SHOTS!!!!!

HANS-JORG MAYER from CHRISTINE MAYER, MUNICH.

Hectic year with painting, showing, teaching. Feeling pretty spent. One week of school left, then a couple weeks of rest before the big European tour. BRING IT ON!

I can't stop thinking about Mike Kelley's HORIZONTAL TRACKING SHOTS paintings. He trades some on high modernism and abstraction but it's as if he uses that stuff as a lure to pull viewers into the narrative spin of these pictures. The paintings are simultaneously HILARIOUS and SAD. That's tough to pull off.

My CCA DRAWING INTENSIVE class did me proud this semester. I can't overstate how invested they were in our collaborative drawing process and how much fun we had along the way. Come see the fruits of our labor at WILL BROWN tonight. 

Inundated with STUFF.  Thanks for all the good feedback on my "essay". I'm encouraged enough to write another soon.  


I'm kind of "on fire" right now. A lot of good things happening for me and around me. Yep. Fo Sho.


BEN LEE HANDLER, JOE FINLAW AND GRANT BUSH.  PULP NIGHT WAS EPIC. I LOVE YOU GUYS.  xx KB

Mike Kelley, underrated PAINTER. Theaster Gates, yuck! Notes later.

PULP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WHY YOU? WHY ME? WHY HERE? WHY NOW?

On Abstraction:


I get asked a lot why I have such difficulty with abstraction in painting (and for the record,there are plenty of abstract pictures I like). Well, there are a lot of reasons and I'm not really a good enough writer to explain them eloquently but I can try to put a few of them out there.

I think some of it is purely subjective. I'm not inclined to investigate the spiritual, the sublime or the poetic and that seems to be what a lot of abstract art aims to get me to do, at least that's what many painters have told me. I'm also not interested in pure formalism, process or design. While I can appreciate those things, I prefer pictures that force me into tougher positions via narrative content that is social, sexual, socio-economic, philosophical, political or taboo (and I'm NOT talking about work that wants to focus on multiculturalism, diversity, political correctness and globalization as its primary goal) .  Now, some of that stuff can be potentially a real bore, I get that. I certainly don't want to look at work that's overtly didactic. When dealing with content there's a fine line there.  But generally, something that has  the potential to ruffle some feathers is what I'm drawn to. I'm also a big fan of humor. I don't think there's an abstract painting on the planet that could make me laugh but I'm sure there are plenty of you out there who would say that's not true for you. Well, it is true for me. The one exception I can think of off the top of my head are Carl Ostendarp's blobs, splashes, drips and drops, but those are a specific case and I think that they are somehow about making fun of abstraction. That's what I take away from them anyway.   


One of my bigger issues with abstraction is how it is a signifier of good taste.  I understand that there was a time when abstraction was avant-garde and radical.  We passed that moment DECADES ago. Culturally, at least in intellectual/bourgeois society, abstraction is an acceptable, co-opted form.  The purchaser can feel good that they're getting art but they don't have to worry about offending family or friends or provoking potentially inflammatory conversations about sexual, vulgar or taboo topics. They also avoid opening up unpleasant conversations about race, politics or religion.  Museums and galleries can show abstract painting without causing a ruckus and having unwanted negative attention or criticism directed at them. In bigger, more sophisticated cities, this is probably somewhat less of a concern compared to everything between the coasts. If you know me at all and if you know my work, you can see where this is going.  Someone like me who makes "provocative" work is never going to have the opportunities to show in museums and municipal spaces that artists dealing in abstraction (and for that matter, more benign narrative content) are going to have. And, obviously, the commercial opportunities for artists who avoid inflammatory content are exponentially broader.  I understand there are Paul McCarthy's and Mike Kelley's in this world but for every one of them there are 100 Toma Absts and Brice Mardens. Ultimately, we are all competing for the same grant money and exhibition space. My hunch is that boards who dole out corporate money are not inclined to give out money to an artist who is going to offend anyone in their "demographic".  I've often thought that the art world should be like the Academy Awards or the Grammys and make categories that create equal opportunities for abject art, humorous art, scatological art, etc.


I by no means want to imply that Abstract Painters are the poster boys for benign/annodyne  art. There are plenty of painters, sculptors, social practitioners, and photographers who work in the realm of the narrative and the conceptual who also have no problem avoiding the tough topics. It's just that painting has been at the forefront of my thought these last few years and I'm adamant about the importance of making narrative pictures.  I read an Otto Muhl interview long ago where he said that making figurative, narrative paintings was our responsibility as painters/artists. He asserted that the shared, recognizable imagery and iconography that we all trade in as humans is all that we have to communicate with each other with and to not use these things is irresponsible. Mind you, I've seen abstract pictures made by Otto Muhl (though his paintings are, by far, predominantly figurative and predominantly provocative).


At this point in my career, I've had lectures cancelled, multiple photographs dumped or returned by collectors, work pulled from gallery exhibitions and work pulled from  public collections. My work at PS1's INTO ME/OUT OF ME show, which was all about the bodily/scatological/abject, was subject to censorship and essentially "buried" in the hardest to reach recesses of the exhibition space. I can't blame my inability to secure grants or tenure track jobs on the content of my work, but I also can't NOT blame my inability to get these things on that. Less opportunities plus (therefore) less impressive resume equals greater inability to compete in the job market. Is there one contemporary abstract painter out there who has been subject to this type of rejection and censorship?


I get that no one is holding a gun to my head and making me make work that is scatological and sexual. I also get that no one is holding a gun to my head and forcing me to make paintings that are deliberately provocative and politically incorrect.  It's just frustrating that art is all crammed into ONE category. Art that is commercially viable and institutionalized is deemed "successful", art that is not is generally regarded as a failure. That's frustrating because I've been around long enough and had enough critical/theoretical/historical support to know that that's not true.  However, it sure would be nice to get some institutional support, more sales, a tenure track job and some grant money. 

LAKERS BEAT SACRAMENTO IN TEXAS WITHOUT KOBE!! 


I am sorely missing my basketball time this season. Been too busy to really get involved. And it looks like I'll be in Europe for the bulk of the playoffs. Hopefully I'll catch some games at 4AM, drunk in a pub somewhere.

ERAL on the road with SISTERFUCKER. IZZY in OKC taking care of his babies. BOADWEE in Emeryville sending CLUB PAINT pictures to HAMBURG AND BERLIN.

Fuck THOMAS KINKADE. He was a shitty artist, a Christian, and a conservative asshole who made stupid paintings and exploited labor to reap gross profits. Dave Hickey co-opting him for his own selfish agenda doesn't mean that he was cool or a great artist. GOOD RIDDANCE TO BAD RUBBISH. 

Blogging is on the back burner right now. 

Inside my lungs.