I sent a message to Maureen Dowd and asked her about it, and she said, “Actually, it’s the work of an artist.” I tried to get it - I do subscribe, but of course I couldn’t find it, so I went to the corner shop and discovered it didn’t exist. I was just so taken with the immediacy of this image - the simplicity, but also the artistry.
I thought truthfully that it was a Times front page, and that it was so amazing for them to have printed that. I was disturbed about the fires and tried to write about them, and here was someone who, in one image, captured the horror of the whole thing through the beauty of a graphic image. It went from reds to black, and just said “CALIFORNIA.” That was in September of 2020, when all the terrible fires were happening. But somebody that I follow posted a picture, and it was the cover of The New York Times with this beautifully abstracted painting, almost like a Rothko. I found him on Instagram just by accident, and there’s a certain irony to the fact that I found Sho, this person who has an old-school work ethic, there. He calls himself a worker, like I did when I was younger, because he doesn’t feel he has earned that mantle yet.
Sana is an African-American, Afrocentric artist, but her interest in the world is global, and I think that’s very inspiring. I can only look at those works so much - they’re very traumatic and beautiful at the same time. The body of work of hers that I thought was the most difficult to engage with was the one that dealt with sexual mutilation. I found that really poetic, to link our bodies to the earth in a direct way. She said once that there are as many clay colors as there are colors of people on the earth. So I really love her regard for clay, which she thinks about as this primal material. I always joke and say I’m a materialist, and people are usually confused, because that’s associated with selfishness and greed, but what I mean is that I’m engaged with how material can speak and how it can have meaning specific to the experiences of individuals. Her work is connected to social justice - it’s what’s driving her vision - and, for me, is really exciting. Sana Musasama is an amazing colleague of mine at Hunter College who has been doing great work for years.
But that’s true of life in general, and people make too big a fuss over the struggles of being an artist, as though an artist’s humanity is different from anyone else’s, as though we are a different kind of creature. You may have feedback, and there are moments when people will give you reassurance, but you won’t have that always. “The thing I want them to remember,” she says, “is that being an artist means you’ll always be a little insecure and a little unsure because you don’t know where you’re going a lot of the time - every act of creation is new. … And the optimistic artist who turned the Met’s rooftop into a “Sesame Street” fantasy.įor her part, the renowned 96-year-old Syrian-American poet and painter Etel Adnan, whom we interviewed for this story but who wasn’t able to select just one artist, chose instead to share a bit of advice for all the artists mentioned - each of whom, she says, is rising in their own way. The down-to-earth guy with one of the most exciting collections around … How TriBeCa became New York’s hottest new gallery district, home to PPOW and more - and where to find notable galleries outside of New York and Los Angeles.
#Painter 2021 how to
Experts weigh in on how to buy a work of art, and artists share which artists to keep an eye on. T’s 2021 Art Issue A look at the soul of the art world, and where it’s headed.
0 kommentar(er)
