I recently spent five days on the east coast, prompted by a visiting artist engagement at the Art Institute of Boston that involved crits with students in the summer low residency AIB/Lesley University MFA program during the day followed by a public lecture that same evening. The students were an energetic and varied group, and they all seemed--with varying degrees of success--to be trying to find their voices as 21st century artists. Of course, the role of the MFA and what it represents (or should represent) in the training of an artist was something I thought about as I went through the day there. 

      Along with my visit to the Art Institute of Boston, I was particularly eager to see three exhibitions in the area: Frank Gohlke at the Addison Gallery of American Art in Andover, Anish Kapoor at the ICA (Institute of Contemporary Art) in Boston, and Cecilia Mendez's show at the Center for Latino Arts, also located in Boston. 

      I met Frank Gohlke when I was a graduate student at Yale from 1991-93 and he was visiting faculty in the graduate photography program. Our initial conversation was actually not about pictures, but vintage custom cars. My brother and I had been inveterate builders of model cars when we were young, and we were regular habitues of the various auto shows at the New York Coliseum. So we knew all the various makes, models, and custom colors of almost any car. Looking at the work of a classmate who had made pictures at an auto show one day, Frank asked me if I knew anything about cars. I proceeded to test his own knowledge of cars and paint colors. He got Candy Apple Red and Metallic Blue right, and he also correctly identified a 1932 Ford Coupe and a 1940 Ford Willis, classics all.  He also correctly identified a number of other cars in the photographs that most people wouldn't know. Gohlke had a very unpretentious air about him, a true openness to whatever it was you were showing him or talking about. Though he had an illustrious career, there wasn't an arrogant bone in the man that I could detect. He seemed firmly grounded. I figured then that he was okay.

      I had never been one to show much interest in landscape photographs. Mostly I wasn't sure if I understood them. And I was often mystified as to how they had been made, where the camera had been placed in the often elevated vantage point. Nonetheless I had always paid attention to Frank Gohlke's pictures, seeing his Grain Elevators at MoMA in 1978 and a few years later his paired photographs from the Wichita Falls Tornado series at MoMA, in which he photographed both the catastrophic aftermath and rebuilding of this town one year later from identical positions. Later still I went to see his exhibition of photographs made in the aftermath of the Mt St. Helens volcanic eruption, which were shown at Dan Wolf Gallery and MoMA. Somehow his work always spoke to me in a way some other landscape pictures didn't. (I'm still not sure I "get" Robert Adams, for example, though I love his writings.) So I knew who he was when he showed up in the classroom at Yale when I was a student there. Recently I bought a copy of his new book,  Accommodating Nature: The Photographs of Frank Gohlke (published by the Center for American Places and the Amon Carter Museum), and have poured over both Gohlke's pictures and the writing by Gohlke and others that appears throughout the book, so I was looking forward to seeing the show at the Addison.

      The first group of pictures Frank brought in to show us graduate students were the photographs of the Sudbury River he was then working on. Unlike his work to that point, these pictures were large, and they were in color. Neither of these things were as ubiquitous as they now are, and so the pictures threw me for a loop then. Additionally they differed formally from his earlier work in that there was no horizon visible in these pictures; they were all made at a downcast angle into the Sudbury waters. They were a nice jolt and refreshing to see, particularly for an artist who had what appeared to be a long establish vocabulary for making his work; it was instructive for all of us to see him shaking things up. How nice then to see the group of  them brought together at the Addison for the first time since I had seen them in 1992 and to be able to reacquaint myself with them. 

      What was apparent from this wonderfully evocative show (and the accompanying publication) was just how deeply personal all of these pictures are to Gohlke. Indeed Wichita Falls was his birthplace, and the wide open spaces of his childhood and his family's history informs his sensibility, and its impact recurs in various ways and forms throughout his pictures. These formative experiences marked him with a responsiveness to the land and the natural environment that continues to deeply permeate his work. These pictures are decidedly not the work of an urban sensibility.

      Here's a beautiful quote by Gohlke that appears in the recent book: 

"We begin at the center, and our impulse is outward. Throughout a lifetime, whether our track seems meandering or straight, we are constantly in motion, getting on with things, going somewhere...Has the center traveled with us, an unnoticed companion? Or have we been walking in place as the world flows by? Either way, we will proceed."

      The Addison Gallery of American Art also had on view an exhibition, "Then and Now," comprising selections from its permanent collection, which now number some sixteen thousand objects. I was pleasantly surprised to find my own Polaroid diptych  "Alva" included among the contemporary works in one exquisitely hung gallery. The show provided real insight into the breadth of their collection, and further demonstrates how a thoughtful, provocative, and informed installation can further illuminate these works. I always learn a lot about curatorial practice, process, and thoughtful exhibition installation whenever I visit the Addison Gallery.

Boston's new ICA is one of my favorite places, and I've seen every show there since the new building (designed by Diller, Scofido & Renfro) opened some two years ago. From the outside the building looks quite clean and contained in a boxy modernist kind of way (though it appears very different--and wonderfully translucent-- when illuminated from within at nighttime), but from the inside the building comes alive in exciting ways that makes the visitor aware of both the inside and outside simultaneously; at various locations a wonderful kind of transparency takes place. The view from the Mediatheque room is truly transcendent (even if marred somewhat by two orange buoys floating visibly in the Boston Harbor waters nearby.) 

      Such an environment turns out to be the perfect place for the current exhibition "Anish Kapoor: Past, Present, Future." A wonderfully mind bending sensory experience, the show is full of works that destabilize any firm sense of just what it is you are seeing and experiencing. Often the two don't feel like the same thing, and guards are strategically stationed to keep viewers from touching the objects, which often feels like an urgent and necessary antidote to the pervasive feeling of spatial disorientation that the works provoke. Here solid seems hollow, hollow seems solid, top is bottom, small seems big, and things that protrude seem to magically flatten out and pull you in as you move around them. Organized by Nicholas Baume, ICA's Chief Curator, the show is on view through September 7th. See it if you can. Seeing "Cloud Gate" (more popularly referred to as The Bean here in the Windy City)--Kapoor's lone American public sculpture-- doesn't begin to prepare you for the complex experience of this survey show.

      ICA was also presenting "Street Level," with works by Mark Bradford, Robin Rhodes, and William Cordova. The exhibition originated at the Nasher Museum, and was organized there by Trevor Schoonmaker. A refreshing show, it contained some heartbreakingly beautiful drawings (100 of them) by Cordova, entitled "World Famo Paintings," which were the highlight of that show for me. I'd love to have one (or two) of these on my walls to look at. I've got to get in touch with Cordova. 

The Center for Latino Arts, located in Boston's South End, is a gallery, performance space, and education center. The gallery consists of two nicely proportioned rooms, and Cecilia Mendez had thoughtfully installed her exhibition "Palabracion" there (the show closed July 2nd). The artist's experience growing up in a bilingual home forms the experiential core of the exhibition. The works in the show consist of sculptural objects/installations, drawings, and stop motion animated film and video. All are concerned with, "the belief that language--literally and symbolically--is a tool of power in everyday life," as Mendez says. Richly layered in both material and allegorical means, the work runs the gamut from playful to reverential, all the while making us aware of the constant dualities which inform the lived experience of the artist. What could easily become a didactic visual and conceptual exercise instead becomes a catalyst for wide ranging and evocative uses of material, forms, objects, and symbols, imbuing them with a personal and idiosyncratic meaning, which also wraps itself around the viewer, implicating them in their own experiences as well. I couldn't stop looking at "Mesa Llena/Full Table," a beautifully poetic piece consisting of a ladle, a mallet, and a pair of scissors, all situated in relation to a narrow and tall table, with threaded pieces of paper containing language spilling from the ladle.  This is an artist of real intelligence and imagination.

      On the way to New York, I stopped off in New Haven for several hours to catch up with old friends at Yale, and to tour the Yale University Art Gallery exhibitions. YUAG Director Jock Reynolds continues to do amazing things there (he's even brought Van Gogh's "The Starry Night" to the neighborhood), and Rob Storr seems now settled in as the new dean of the Yale School of Art. Both Storr and Reynolds are long time artists, and I believe this is what allows them to function so broadly and creatively as curators, administrators, fundraisers, project conceptualizers, essayists, etc. Reynolds has gotten Yale students deeply involved in the museum, team curating exhibitions, giving docent talks, and otherwise becoming a part of the institutional fabric. He always reminds me of a joyously enthralled ten year old boy let loose in a candy store; his enthusiasm, knowledge, and love for what he does is infectious. He can hold forth for hours with unbridled gusto about every single object in the museum. With his sharp intellect and out of the box thinking, Storr is a fitting choice to move the Yale School of Art boldly into the 21st century too. I've always admired his avoidance of orthodoxy, which allows him to be meaningfully engaged by a wide swath of work, from David Hammons, to Robert Ryman, to Elizabeth Murray, Chuck Close and Louise Bourgeois.  Different artists all, and each has received the knowledgeable attention of Storr in the wide range of exhibitions and publications he has curated and/or authored. To my mind these two--Reynolds and Storr-- make a particularly inspired pair, and their joint presence at Yale makes for a truly inspired moment.

I met up with photographer Accra Shepp in New York at BBar, my favorite restaurant/watering hole/office when I'm in town. (He took me to Dashwood Books for my maiden visit afterwards.) I remember BBar when it first opened in the 80s. Then it was a hotspot, and you needed a reservation to get in. I've had some wonderful times there with friends, including a great after party for Lorna Simpson when she had her first commercial gallery show back in 1989, and more recently David Hammons' birthday gathering when I happened to be in town. It's a place loaded with history, and I schedule all of my New York meetings there whenever possible. It's a much quieter place now, thankfully, and a little worn around the edges, but still a great breakfast/brunch/lunch spot. It's also conveniently located on East 4th Street, where if you sit out front of 4th Street Photo Gallery long enough (as I always do), someone you know will come by. This time it was Saya Woolfalk, (former SAIC grad student) whose artist-in-residence exhibition opens (along with fellow AIRs Leslie Hewitt and Tanea Richardson) at the Studio Museum in Harlem later this week. I'll have to get back to New York to see it.

Photographs: Frank Gohlke, Hillsboro, Texas, 1978; ICA, Anish Kapoor, installation view, ICA Boston; Cecilia Mendez, Homanaje a Abuelita/Homage to Abuelita, 2001/2008; BBar and Grill, New York
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Birmingham on My Mind

September 15, 1963 - Fifty Years Later

One night, many years ago, a book appeared in my suburban Jamaica, NY home. My parents had attended a lecture that James Baldwin had given at our church, Calvary Baptist Church, and had returned with the book in hand. While the church never struck me as a particularly activist one, our minister, Rev. Walter S. Pinn, had let it be known on more than one occasion that he had marched besides Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. There was a small black and white photograph hanging in the church vestibule that proudly and permanently testified to that fact. Most likely my folks purchased the book after Baldwin's talk as part of SNCC's fundraising efforts.
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On The Passing of Two Giants

This has been a difficult month, what with the loss of poet and activist Louis Reyes Rivera, and even more recently the esteemed artist Elizabeth Catlett. Both Rivera and Catlett were artists who were unabashedly forthright in their adherence to the cause of social justice, and equally as forthright in their adherence to practicing at the highest level of of their respective art forms.
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Reshaping The Art/Museum/Public Experience

The past few months have been interesting ones for those interested in the ways in which art practice, public institutional practice and their various audiences interact. As the economy has taken a downturn lately public institutions have begun to think about the ways in which they do or do not engage that larger audience that their very survival depends upon.
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The recent passing of Dr. Billy Taylor was marked by notices of his contribution to jazz music as both musician and advocate. Taylor, in addition to being a seminal jazz pianist, had sustained for over four decades a position as one of the music's most visible and preeminent spokespersons, having taken on the role of educator and institution builder among his numerous other accomplishments in the field.
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Recent Censorship Recalls Spirit of an Earlier Era

In 1936 Adolf Hitler, German Chancellor, instructed Adolf Ziegler, president of the Reich Chamber of Fine Arts, to put together an “exhibition of shame”, depicting the “deterioration of art since 1910”. Ziegler gathered a group of what were called “art inspectors” to trawl through the public museums and galleries. The committee compiled everything from some 100 art collections they considered useful for defaming the Modernist movement.
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John Boehner Fires the Opening Salvo

I had the rather auspicious fortune to be in Washington, DC for several days this past week when the opening salvo of a new round in the Culture Wars was fired by Congressman John Boehner.
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A Different Kind of MoMA?

On a recent trip to New York I had one of those rare epiphany like moments where I found myself standing in front of a group of works that spoke clearly to how the work we do as artists might actually matter in the world. Such was the impact of this show on me that almost every other exhibition I saw both before and after in those three days came to feel almost meaningless, like so much empty, aestheticized and useless decoration.

National Endowment for the Arts chair Rocco Landesman was in Chicago recently, holding a series of meetings, gatherings, and conversations with various institutions and the arts community.

I was the speaker at the Yale University School of Art Commencement this past Monday. The School of Art ceremony followed the school wide ceremony on the Old Campus where, among others, Aretha Franklin fittingly received an honorary Doctor of Music degree. The feeling of well earned and shared accomplishment was palpable walking amongst the families of the graduates, and I was reminded yet again of the hard work and sacrifice that these moments are invested with.
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Dawoud Bey
Dawoud Bey
Dawoud Bey
Photo © by Jason Smikle
About Me
About Me
Chicago, IL, United States
I began making photographs in 1969 after seeing the "Harlem On My Mind" exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I had inherited my first camera the year before from my godfather Artie Miller when I was fifteen years old. I began my first project "Harlem, USA" as a direct result of that exhibition and my own family's history in the Harlem community. Born in Queens, NY my formal training began by apprenticing to local commercial and fashion photographer Levy J. Smith and then later studying at the School of Visual Arts with Larry Siegel, William Broecker, Shelley Rice and Sid Kaplan. I completed my undergraduate work at Empire State College under the guidance of Mel Rosenthal and Joe Goldberg and did my MFA at Yale University in the graduate photography program under the watchful and rigorous eyes of Tod Papageorge and Richard Benson, along with Lois Conner, Frank Gohlke, Susan Kismaric and Joel Sternfeld. Classes with Robert Farris Thompson and Michael Romer significantly rounded out my graduate work. A former Guggenheim and NEA fellow, I am currently Professor of Art and Distinguished College Artist at Columbia College Chicago, where I have taught since 1998.
"What's Going On?"
"What's Going On?"
Marvin Gaye's signature song "What's Going On?"--a musical critique of a world gone off track--provides an apt framework for looking at the role of art and cultural production in the larger society.

With so much art being made at all ends of the market, it's always a good thing for artists to look both forward and back in trying to access the role that art can play in a larger society, a society that actually exists largely outside of the distorting bubble of the Art World. When one of my students recently answered the question of why she was in school in an MFA program with, "So I can be a part of the system," I knew it was time for a reassessment and a forum from which to look at the various histories in my own little corner of the art and "real" world.

Artists used to be the ones who led the charge to challenge the system; they were the proverbial "fly in the buttermilk," the monkey wrench that mucked up the system and made it act, function, and exist in new ways. Artists were the ones who created paradigms of everything the system was not. James Baldwin once said, "Artists are here to disturb the peace."

This blog will range freely over a range of issues, highlighting individuals, events, and ideas that provide a catalyst for thought and reflection. Hopefully for younger artists it might provide a sense of a world both in and outside of the so-called art world, and hopefully provoke a conversation about the relationship between the two while offering a thought or two about just what ones work might be about as one attempts to engage both history and the contemporary moment.

For others this blog might serve as a window into how one particular artist, after three decades of practice, sees and thinks about the vast world of human social and aesthetic experience. Consider this my own small commentary or my brain periodically laid bare for your perusal and consideration.

Feel free to use the "Comments" button to share your thoughts and responses if so provoked.
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