Charles Seliger

at Michael Rosenfeld Gallery

Internal Space, 1945

This is an introvert. On the outside he is shy, bleak, grey. Everything is well defined and inside the borders and norms. But the inside is another story. There is a volcano with hot lava flowing along the bottom side.You see different things connected into networks that span objects, ideas, worlds. The networks despite the norms and borders. It is an universe that produces the enormous amount of new things that are confided to a ordinary, not remarkable outer shell.

Dorothy Dehner

at Levis Fine Art

Untitled

Dance party. It's dark. People are seen in the flashes of background light. You don't see them moving continuously, but as in a stop frame video. You not only hear the music, you feel it. Everything is vibrating with the rhythm.You feel somehow connected to other people in the room. You all are one in the dance.

Weekend Edition 35

Pablo Picasso

La pisseuse, 1965

Every woman is a carefully constructed outer image (white stains - the dress). The image is built in the way that you should not see that it was constructed (the pyramid wrapped in the white cloth). Her exposed breasts represent her sexuality. The legs show her groundedness, her pragmatism and common sense. Her vagina is her connection to the nature. The stream coming out of her is the time that is part of her relation with the nature.

Budd Hopkins

at Levis Fine Art

Aquarius III, 1971

You have planned everything. You have anticipated every possible outcomes. But then suddenly your left underside got loose(the greyish figure in the lower left corner). This "disaster" tilts your whole structure to the left. You think that everything is ruined. But actually it gives you a new perspective, a unique point of view. The uniqueness boosts you up, and you are getting ahead of the pack. The imperfections are not bad, they are engines of progress.

Marco Casentini

at Roy Boyd Gallery

Waiting Time, 2011

You are waiting. You feel trapped in a square.There is nothing to do in the square. You are pacing around. Then you make an effort and you escape, only to find yourself in another square. It makes you angry. With each new square you become angrier (more red colored). At the end when your anger boils over (the upper right rectangle), you become frustrated and desperate (the black rectangle).  It takes you back to the square one. Ten minutes have passed.

Eva Berendes

at Ancient & Modern

Untitled, 2008

You open a box(white triangles as part of box upper lid). Inside the box there is another box. Or it could be several boxes. Inside those boxes there more boxes. The box could be a good one (blue or green), a bad one(yellow, red or black). It depends how you open it. You are going through the numerous boxes until you get to where you started (the white box). That is your life. And all those boxes are a lovely screen that tries to cover up the emptiness of the room.

Afro Basaldella

at Haunch of Venison

Doppia Figura, 1954

Nude figure. Laying next to you. The room is half-lit. The colors are muted. Shadows. It is a nice view. You are attracted to the person that is laying naked with you. But the attraction is much deeper than a plain sight. It is intricate network of memories, experiences and feelings that you share with that person. This virtual network strengthens and enriches the physical pleasure.

Per Kirkeby

at Sabine Knust (Art 43 Basel 2012)

Untitled, 2012

You start fresh, green and with lots of blue hopes (lower part). Then the grey foam of small problems, every day routine and tiredness begins to build up. If you can manage to keep the foam in one pile (the middle part), you can concentrate on the important details (red-orange figures). Those details and your fresh approach (the green figures) can lead to a real break-through: the understanding of the big picture, the perspective, the vision.

Weekend Edition 34

Arthur Dove

Clouds and Water, 1930

Dreams they are like clouds. With a wind, they easily move in any direction and cover any distances. Some dreamy white-blue fulfills into down-to-earth brown. But most of blues don't survive the collision with rocks of reality. The dreams are turned into a rain of depression and desperation. The leaves of lost hope are sinking in the puddle.

Nicolas Carone

at Washburn Gallery (Art 43 Basel 2012)

Not to be Touched, 2006

The system is balanced. But it is stable not because it is strong and reinforced. It holds its fragile state by using opposing forces, counter-weights and its own good reputation. You can see the scars from previous encounters. You know that even a light touch can wake up such destructive forces that not only the system will be destroyed but anyone standing in the vicinity of it. Nevertheless you are dying to feel it.

Myron Stout

at Washburn Gallery (Art 43 Basel 2012)

Untitled, 1950

The opposite things attract each other. Negative - positive, red - green. They attract each other, because one has what another lacks. From the other side, they are different in their basic nature. Those opposing forces create an energy zone between and around them(yellow lines). The energy makes the Game interesting. The gamers are not only playing the Game, but also are exploring the black corners that are illuminated by the energy.

Natsuyuki Nakanishi

at SCAI The Bathhouse (Art 43 Basel 2012)

Natsuyuki Nakanishi: Rhyme '60 25 Mars, 1960

You are your worst enemy. Your mind is separated from your body. The mind constantly tries to destroy the body. It is a constant war. It is a trench warfare. One side tries to attack, but can't get the other side out of the dugouts. So the attacking side has little to no progress. The battles are held on the same ground over and over again, when the positions are slightly changed. Though there is no a clear cut winner, the war leaves scars. It changes the landscape, it changes you.

Max Bill

at Annely Juda Fine Art (Art 43 Basel 2012)

rotation around expanding white, 1981

The best comedian is a very sad person. You have to be a philosopher to joke away. You have to have those grains of salt in you(the white squares). These give you a different angle to look at things, because a philosopher and a sad person are lonely persons. And lonely persons are outsiders. The outsiders see things differently(the triangles of different colors around the white squares). That is a great foundation for a good joke.

Weekend Edition 33

Lyonel Feininger at Moeller Fine Art (Art 43 Basel 2012)

Der Marktplatz, 1916

The square after a busy market day. It is quiet, clean and empty, but you still can somehow feel the energy of the morning. People, animal, crops, produce - everything dances, moves, screams in the festive-like atmosphere of commerce. The market is main business hub of this small town. The market defines the town as a community.

Marcel Schaffner

at Galerie Carzaniga (Art 43 Basel 2012)

Untitled, ca. 1957

Jealousy starts from a small event. When you feel that someone is better than you. someone is closer to your object of devotion than you. After it started, you will look at anything as suspicious. Anything will add oil to the fire of Jealousy. Any attempts of Logic and Common Sense to get through would fail(gray figures).  The only logic you use is to justify and to rationalize your actions.Those actions will build a wall that will bury away from your devotion.

Lúcia Laguna

at Galeria Fortes Vilaça (Art 43 Basel 2012)

Jardim N. 2, 2011

It's hot summer day. The city is whited out by sun and dust. Narrow pathetic strips of grass on the sidewalks don't cut it(the green line from the lower left to the lower center). Everything looks like a big hot concrete box that is cracking under the heat.You feel like a fish in deep frying pan(the gray structure in the center). Then, you see a garden. It is full of trees, greenery and shadows. It is small. It is scarred with asphalt pathways. But it is a small patch of wild nature trapped in the urban center. It wakes something animalistic, wild in you. You feel an urge to run and to hide in the deepest shadows you can find.

Liu Wei

at Long March Space (Art 43 Basel 2012)

Beyond the Sky Limits, 2012

Sky is the dream. Your life is gray, dull and depressing(the lower gray ribbon). Then you have a clearing in your thinking(a small white line). You have to act on your impulse. You start working hard(the reddish ribbon). And when you think you are almost broke and you don't have strength to go on, you get a break-through(the white ribbon). You are in the vacuum. You left your old comfortable life, but you haven't get to your destination. It is scary to be in the vacuum, but you know where you are heading and this gives you power to continue. Then you hit the jackpot(the blue ribbon). You have arrived to your dream. You are almost blacked out of the ecstasy (the black ribbon). When you gain back the conscience, you found yourself in a new unknown reality(the white ribbon with burgundy hue). You need to do something. You start working hard(the burgundy ribbon). It leads to a gray, dull and depressing life(the upper gray ribbon). You need a dream, now!

Lisa Ruyter

at Alan Cristea Gallery (Art 43 Basel 2012)

Count the Hours, 2012

Waiting. It is a process, a journey from one point in time to another. You make that journey in a sail boat. The sails are made from a huge number of small things: Hope, Anticipation of something new/exotic, Dependence on others, Patience, Jealousy that someone bit you to the finish line. Sometimes your sails erode, and you need to move to plan B (motor boat?). 

Lesley Vance

at Xavier Hufkens (Art 43 Basel 2012)

Untitled, 2012

At first it was like a game to you (green background). You met at a cafe. Your skills to pick up girls and wits were broken by her steel armour(the figure on the left). Fueled by the mystery and passion, you changed your tactics. You crawled, dug. You have got a couple of dates(circle-like figures in the upper center). It led to a pretty wild relationship(the figure at the upper right corner). But both of you were stuck, you were moving in circles, not progressing. So two of you decided to separate( yellow figure in the right center). You are left only with broken pieces from that relationship (the white figure in the lower right), but you still remember the connection with warmness.

Weekend Edition 32

Lyonel Feininger at Galerie Thomas ( Art 43 Basel 2012)

The Anglers (Black Bridge), 1942

You have dreams. Then there are dreams based on the previous dreams. And you are dreaming about something that is derived from those dreams. At some point, you have started implementing your dreams. You build something concrete that spans your dreams - a bridge. It didn't come out exactly as you dreamed. When you are implementing your dream, you are losing a dream, but you are gaining reality.

Lesley Vance

at David Kordansky Gallery (Art 43 Basel 2012)

Untitled, 2012

Sometimes you think that you have a major problem, a life-threatening issue(the figure in lower left corner).  You feel that your life is changing because of the problem. But if you look around, if you see a bigger picture, you will notice that your life is not threaten. The only thing that changed is your routine. The problem is temporary. It will be resolved with time. And there are much more fearful and really life-changing problem that could possible threaten your existence or lives of your loved ones(the structure in the center).

Katharina Grosse

at Johann König, Berlin (Art 43 Basel 2012)

Untitled, 2012

Art fills  up the human being life (the left half). Without the art, it feels empty, bland and without a purpose(the right half). Art is important. Imagine your life without art. I mean any art: conceptual, abstract, representative, performing, pop, TV. Art is part of the design of all things that we use in our every day life.

Juan Uslé

at L.A. Louver (Art 43 Basel 2012)

Juan Usle Diapason, 2012

Every artist has a diapason, or a range of creativity. Some have huge ranges, some have small ones. Some work in one specific area of art, some have tried in multiple fields. But everyone of them works in his own, parallel universe. They can influence each other, but they can not compete. Art is not a sport. There is nothing objective in the art that could be used as a scale or a ruler (the black figure on the left) to compare different artworks.

Weekend Edition 31

Natalia Goncharova

The Forrest, 1913

 

Events. Some things in your life you can predict and plan for(the red "trees" on the left). The power to do it comes from your own experience and self-confidence(the blue ribbon along the lower edge). The events that were unfolded according to your plans boost your self-confidence (the blue space in the upper middle). You don't have any influence on some other events(the green "trees" in the center and right side). You can only get prepared and see what happen. This unpredictability is making the life much more interesting to watch.

Joan Miro

at Lelong Editions (Art 43 Basel 2012)

Chef des équipages, 1974

A true leader feels the mood of his group. It is like he has neuron connections to different people / places ( the black lines that go to the top and the lower ends look like hooks). People are gravitating toward him ( the green ribbon in the left center). Every crises is used to process, to learn and to improve himself (the red stains from the upper middle to the solid colors in the lower right).

Giacomo Balla

at Moeller Fine Art (Art 43 Basel 2012)

Linea di Velocità e paesaggio, c 1915

Psychology. How does it work? Our behavior is a fabric, made of white associations, red instincts and some acquired knowledge (blue, yellow). All of those complex things with big serious names intertwined into a  complicated structure just to cover up something very basic(green).

Gerhard Richter

at Kukje Gallery (Art 43 Basel 2012)

Abstraktes Bild (862-2), 1999

Imagination can take you places. Or you can build places. And it could be huge, magnificent palaces. The wilder the imagination the more extravagant things you can create using your thoughts. Strong imagination can over shine the reality. It can be so strong that dreams can substitute the reality. You start living in your fantasy (in easy cases it can be cured with medication :). In the earliest collision between imagined world and reality, the mighty arcs of your palace are turned into smoke rings. The reality breeze takes them and the fog of imagination away, clearing the field. The field of harsh, bleak real life.

François Morellet

at Bernard Jacobson Gallery (Art 43 Basel 2012)

Pi Puissant n1 = 10 14 décimales, 1998

It is hard to choose your path.The straight line is not always the shortest or the best way.The chosen path changes you and your environment.

Ernst Wilhelm Nay

at Aurel Scheibler (Art 43 Basel 2012)

Schwarze Kette Grün zu Rot 1966

You are jealous how others look at her(yellow oval). It dents your innocence ( the blue line between yellow oval and dark blue ribbon). But from another point it gives you a boost to your interest in her. So you start exploring her(black beads). You have found out that she is sharp as steel, passionate as fire and tender as a new leaf.This is the perfect woman. She always challenges you and keeps you on your toes.

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner

at Galerie Henze & Ketterer (Art 43 Basel 2012)

Blumen und Figuren (Flowers and Figures), 1930

A small table in small cozy restaurant. It's really small place, no more than a dozen of tables. It's warm, homey and inviting. There are freshly cut flowers on the table. There are two at the table: He and She. They are at the courting game.She invites, he advances. She steps forward, he moves sideways.This is a game of exploration and discovery, where they both win or they both loose.

Emilio Vedova

at Galleria dello Scudo (Art 43 Basel 2012)

Ciclo ’61/’62 – N° 6, 1961-1962

The war between feelings (yellow red right half) and logic(blue gray left part). The war never ends.It goes on in a circle.When you act on a feeling, on a impulse you need to rationalize that later. In the yellow explosion (center slightly to the lower right) you can see the birth of a new logic part.

David Thorpe

at Casey Kaplan (Art 43 Basel 2012)

The Real Life, 2006

People need laws. They need rules to live by. People are social in nature. When you have a group, you have to have some rules in place, otherwise it is very lonely and cold place. Besides well defined and written laws (the yellow fences) there are some unspoken rules of individual behavior (the stakes in the foreground). Those rules look weak and easy to overcome. But you need real courage, rebellion and love for freedom (the black figure) to step outside the self imposed borders.

David Tremlett

at New Art Centre (Art 43 Basel 2012)

Construction and Space #2

The regular people move on the solid base(the solid rectangles from the left to the center). Their choices are solid, sound and logical.But they progress slowly. It takes time to build a good foundation. Some people can progress more rapidly by taking educated guesses (from the center to the right). And a few people can create something that at first glance has nothing to do with its environments(the red rectangles). Those people are geniuses. They see things that others don't. Their creativity and imagination are so outlandish that they are on the border with insanity(red).

Weekend Edition 30

Paul Cezanne

The Cards Players, 1892

The players are the regulars in the place. They are relaxed. A lomg night of card playing is ahead of them. The players are concetrated on the game, because the game is the only enertainment in their life. They are simple people, their life is simple. They don't have hobbies, they don't have interests. They work. They earn money. They survive. The meetings at the card table in the joint is the best thing that happens in their life.

Charline von Heyl

at Friedrich Petzel Gallery (Art 43 Basel 2012)

The Antiplatonick,2011

Friendship is love without physical pleasure. We can call friendship between two people that are in theory sexually attractive, as a platonic love. The problem is that they are staying friends because they have to. They already have someone else that they are intimately involved with. Or the society forbids them to cross the border between the friends and lovers. The feelings are there, they don't go away. They just get covered up.

Brice Marden

at Matthew Marks Gallery (Art 43  Basel 2012)

Window Study #6, 1985

In the winter everything is gray. Those are the colors of winter : white, black and gray with bits of blue. Toward the end of winter, even the snow gets gray hues. The depression is piling up with layers of long cold nights.Everything looks smaller and packed. You start to think when you will get a break - a spring break!

Albrecht Schnider

at Galerie Bob van Orsouw (Art 43 Basel 2012)

Untitled, 2011

 

 

Friedrich Nietzsche : "What doesn't kill us makes us stronger". It doe not makes us physically stronger. Things that almost kill us definitely take something from us. It could be something physical or something mental or both.  But our organism is very coping. It compensates the loss with what is left. So retained parts become much more developed and thus stronger. Those parts are stronger than they were before. But because there are missing parts, the compensation does not make you whole again. And definitely you are not what you are used to be.

Hélio Oiticica

at Lelong Gallery (Frieze Art Fair New York 2012)

Untitled, 1956

The night is very romantic time. It is as well a very philosophical time when you are alone. It gives you a boost like a hit of a cue stick into the snooker ball. You start moving toward another person. Before that this person was living in a parallel universe. You didn't notice her existence. She is the absolute opposite of what you are. Nevertheless you are so attracted to her, only a collision can stop you.

Jon Pestoni

at David Kordansky Gallery (Frieze Art Fair New York 2012)

Tilt, 2011

You wake up. It is summer. It is morning. You see your love. She is sitting outside in the sun.She is wearing a open summer white with flowers dress. She is tanned. She is looking at something far away. She is radiating warmth and love. She is waiting for you to get up. You tilt your head and then it strikes you this is the moment of happiness.

Jon Thompson

at Anthony Reynolds Gallery (Frieze Art Fair New York 2012)

The Tornonto Cycle #12, CADENCE and DISCORD (V1) Traer los Sentidos, 2010-2011

 People see things differently. They have various opinions and interpretations on exactly the same events.The same thing can create different associations for different people, thus creating different mood in which they interpreter the events they witness.  Well what do you expect when people can not agree on the colors they see?

Shinro Ohtake

at Take Ninagawa (Frieze Art Fair New York 2012)

Time Memory 1, 2012

Time is frozen in memory. Time is preserved in small pieces - photos, movies, letters, diaries.The fossil time is used as building blocks for our memories.We polish those blocks as if they were from granite and we cover the floor, walls and ceiling with them in our temple of our experience. But it is not granite. It has been scratched. It has graffiti. It is missing some pieces, so it was patched with some imagination and rationalization. Our magnificent temple of experience can crumble any time.

Julije Knifer

at galerie frank elbaz (Frieze Art Fair New York 2012)

M.5.60 (Méandre n°5), 1960

If you are a white-or-black person, you can think of yourself as an organized one. You can sort anything into two neat piles. But the life is not easy for you, because Life is not black-n-white. So you need to go a long way to get to the destination (just as a river does at a meander). And you don't notice that, but you close yourself into a box from which you can't escape. The main thing is that when you are black-or-white person, most of the time most of the colors are gray.

Riddle Edition 3

Leonid Golender

It's a riddle, 2006

What is it?

Steve DiBenedetto

at David Nolan Gallery (Frieze Art Fair New York 2012)

Knot Building, 2008

Knots are used to tie loose ends. But once it is tighten up, it creates a bump on a smooth rope. In a relationship, when you want to create a bond, it should be done naturally. Yes, you need to make an effort. Your energy should  focus on relationship development and not to build something artificial. The moment you use force, it creates a tension. The tension creates problems. You are trying to conceal the your forced efforts. You are trying to resolve the tension and the problems, but you are pulling in the wrong direction. One thing piles on another. In no time instead of nice strong bond you have a big messy tangle. Moreover in this situation your relationship is started to stagnate and the gangrene kicks in.

Jon Pestoni

at David Kordansky Gallery (Frieze Art Fair New York 2012)

GPY, 2012

This is the spring break. Yellow sun, green trees and white lazy vacation days. The spring break also is about drinking and hooking up. Yellow is a color of Inferiority complex. You are feeling insecure and jealous. Jealous of someone that you think is luckier or more experienced than you. Add to this your own lack of experience. You jump straight in the middle of white uncharted waters. So the dating part is pretty much a disaster. You emerge on the other side jealous as before, only more bruised and scarred. And because of your excessive drinking some parts of the vacation are blankly white.

Sean Scully

at Timothy Taylor Gallery (Frieze Art Fair New York 2012)

Doric, 2011

There are black days. Those are the days when you just survive. When later you try to remember those days, you cannot because nothing happened. There are better days(gray). They are filled with hopes, dreams. On those days you do things to improve your life. And there are bright days. Those days you remember all your life. On those days you feel that you accomplished something, you have improved your life or lives of others. On those days you were happy. The bright days are the pillars of your life. There are not a lot of bright, happy days, but if you have any, your life can withstand any disaster

Jeremy Gilbert Rolfe

at Alexander Gray Associates (Frieze Art Fair New York 2012)

Dawn in any city, 2011

People make up the face of a city. They can brighten a gray, gloomy and depressing city. They can ruin a perfect town. People add colors to the buildings and streets. But as the number of people swells, you start feeling overwhelmed by the mobs. You feel like a sand grain in the sea - isolated and insignificant. You feel very lonely and crowded at the same time. That's why you are trying to escape : behind a newspaper, into the headphones or onto the internet.

When I finished writing about this work, I have realized that I already have a post about it. So for those who are interested here the link to the same artwork.

Weekend edition 29

Frantisek Kupka

Etude pour la montée, 1920

To grow something you need some soil (black figures in the bottom) and some water (whitish blue figures stretching from the bottom to the middle). All of the sudden your plant is growing. You need to feed it small portions of sun and water (red figures with blue border) That is how you make your idea-dream into the reality. the soil is your creativity. The water is your resources. and the sun is the exposure to the bigger environment. If the idea is good enough, it will get only stronger with the critique and the competition.

Allison Katz

at Johan Berggren Gallery (Frieze Art Fair New York 2012)

Add caption

As we know people love to watch. They love to watch not only what is happening now, but what has happened before. They love history. People have tendency to forget bad things, so naturally the historical events look much better than they really were. As the time runs the details of the events are lost. That puts a layer of mystery on the history. Mysteries attract people. Combine all of the above together and you get Nostalgia.

Dan Rees

at T293 (Frieze Art Fair New York 2012)

Artex Painting, 2012

People like to watch.They watch all time starting from a fire in a cave and continue through gladiators' fights to the TV. It is our basic instinct to watch out for danger.We are hard wired to watch. When there is no danger (other than to gain weight), most of the people relax and duly watch whatever they see on the screen.But there are some people who go beyond the layer what they are shown. They watch the flames of feelings, the fights of morality and the dramedy of psychology.