Modern Kicks

never a dull moment

So, about this whole "no posts in weeks" thing.  The usual lassitude is to blame in part, of course, but a few other things have intruded as well.  You know the whole silly "blogging can kill you" thing that went around a few weeks ago?  True, I'm sure, for some tiny number of highly driven people who also take poor care of themselves and possibly have other underlying problems, and not a bad pretext for taking some space back for one's self.  As for me, it's been some time since I've been hell-bent on posting daily, so I've not been facing that kind of pressure--heck, I've been begging for ideas.  Nonetheless, I discovered that when life puts you flat on your back in a hospital bed, as happened to me three weeks ago, it's a good time to focus on things other than what might make a good blog post.  I'm doing well, much better now than then (though it was slightly interesting to have the mundane realization that when tv shows do the cliched first-person angle giving the view of someone looking up from a gurney being wheeled around, showing only bits of hallways and walls and hospital staff looking down--yup, it's pretty much like that), but still can't say that writing here has emerged once more as a priority.  Which isn't to say that I'm not planning to write more, or that I'm not reading, thinking, and (when opportunities arise) looking, but I'm trying to balance those aspects of life with a greater focus on the whole staying out of the hospital thing.  I owe emails to several people, which I hope to get to soon, as well as posts on various books, more thoughts on Pompeo Batoni and 18th century painting in Rome, and who knows? Perhaps I'll make to the MFA's El Greco/Velázquez show.

For now, though, I'll leave you with an update and a quick link: first, as many of you no doubt have already seen, Geoff Edgers had a recent follow-up article in the Globe on the MFA's fight over its Kokoschka painting.  In brief, his piece presents arguments from some disputing the museum's attempt to claim title to the painting on the grounds that its late 1930's sale by the then-owner, an Austrian Jew, was not a forced sale.  Criticisms by historians of the museum's stance and perceived lack of forthcoming regarding all details also figure in as well.  I'm simply noting the article right now, as I blogged about previous coverage, arguing (with reservations) in favor of the museum's position.  Obviously I know nothing of the exact facts of the case beyond what's been published, and reserve the right to change my mind about the case, as I indicated I might in previous posts.  Still, while I'm not going to go into detail at this time--I haven't read carefully enough--I remain concerned about what the exact standards are for determining whether a work should be restituted and how they apply here even as the public case for the museum has taken some hits.  More, perhaps, later.  On a different note, the quick link I mentioned is to the blog of The New Courtauld Mafia, bring you "cultural coverage from the students of the Courtauld Institute of Art.  They're just getting started, and could post more frequently (though I shouldn't talk of course), but I'm thinking it's a site worth watching, even if I admit to a certain bias in favor of almost anything Courtauld-related.  Check it out, and I'll be back when I can.

Updating on preview: whoa, the Courtauld Mafia site informs me that Anne d'Harnoncourt has died.  Terrible news that puts my experiences in perspective.  I second their post.

housekeeping

Observant readers may have already noticed some changes in the sidebar at right.  I've started on the long-deferred business of cleaning up my links, getting rid of those to sites no longer updated and adding some new ones in their stead.  This isn't very enjoyable for me, as a number of the sites to which I find myself removing links were important to me and run by people I consider friends.  I can only say that if they find themselves reactivating their sites, or starting new ones, I will be more than happy to restore links.  On a more positive note, I've added a few links that I'd long meant to get to.  For instance, it only took me nearly seven months from the time I first posted about it to add The Art Tribune, now listed with the other art media sites, as it should be.  Among the blogs, Sharon L. Butler's Two Coats of Paint has been a site I've long meant to add, and now finally have.  Art Observed, meanwhile, "covers contemporary art globally from a New York City perspective," if I may borrow from the site description.  Lots of good stuff at all three, so check them out if you're not already reading.  I know there are other good sites out there, too; perhaps this beginning will result in continued updating of links.  We shall see.

endings and updates

I was thinking to myself this morning, "You know, I've been so busy, I've fallen out of touch.  I need some art news.  Let's go over to Figure Painting and see what's going on."  So I did, only to find that the blog's last post went up a week ago: Callen Bair, the author, is leaving for law school.  While I'm sad to see the site go--I liked it and found it a useful place to find out what was going on in art world doings--I do wish her the best of luck in her future endeavors.  I especially like the focus she took in her last entry--art's not all about New York and the like.

In other blog news, I should probably mention that I intend to soon do some work on the sidebar links.  I really hate to remove links, but I have several to sites that are no longer active.  I keep them there because I enjoyed them, and in many cases think of the writers as friends; but too many dead links make the list less useful.  Now that I've said this, I'll probably never get around to doing it, but I just wanted to go on record first.

Also: some time ago I took umbrage at a suggestion someone made that this site would be closing soon.  I'm happy to report that my status has been upgraded.  And how pleased am I that this site is linked to on the web page of the Courtauld Institute of Art's library?  Very, very pleased.

always the last to know

A couple of years back I used to read with interest the website of Los Angeles-based artists Megan and Murray McMillan.  I fell out of the habit, though; we all have too much to read and LA seemed so distant, it became hard for me to feel connected to it--I stopped reading pretty much all LA-based blogs about the same time.  So imagine my surprise to find them listed among the Boston/New England art blogs suggestions Tyler has asked people to send him.  It seems they moved out this way last fall and are now local.  So a belated welcome to the area, and the sidebar, to both of them.

. . .

It was going to be a pretty slow post-holiday week anyway--there's just not a lot going on--but having the pipes freeze has pushed writing even further down the list of things to do.  Back soon.

two brief notes

I've been away for the past several days and am just now starting to catch up.  So two quick notes:

First, this is exactly correct, and it's not just in the galleries.  Reading the late Kirk Varnedoe's Pictures of Nothing: Abstract Art since Pollock, I was struck by how much that subtitle was meant not to function temporally, indicating the path of abstraction since 1950 give or take, but as a sign of lineage.  Without getting the book out I can't completely confirm this, but my recollection is that Varnedoe tied virtually every major figure discussed in his lectures back to Pollock, examining the later artists' work as a direct response to or evolution out of his breakthroughs.  Not always indefensibly so, of course, but it indicates the same dominant narrative that one finds at MoMA.

On a more mundane technical note, though one of interest to me, I'd gradually become aware that the books displayed in the sidebar at right courtesy of LibraryThing's widget seemed to draw only from a limited, and repetitive, subgroup of those I've cataloged.  So I looked into it, and it seems I hadn't configured the widget as I intended.  I've tweaked it, and it now seems to be drawing on a fuller group, though I'm not sure it's getting everything.  I've extended the number of books displayed, because looking at those little covers warms my heart.  I also tried the search feature for the first time, and pronounce it awesome.  Now only if I had more books . . .

a little self-indulgence

Because otherwise, what's a blog for?  Kriston Capps decided to answer Peter Plagens' questions himself, to add to the conversation, and kicked it out to others to do the same.  The idea to do so had already occurred to me, and I had chosen not to; but Kriston not only included two links here in his post as well as a flattering comment, so what the hell, I'm easily bought.  I'm putting the rest under the fold to not bother those who'd rather not be bothered.  And while I won't kick it out to specific others as Kriston does, I do join him in encouraging anyone else who'd like to take part.  Anyway, moving on,

art (blogs) in america

Give Peter Plagens credit: after getting raked over the coals online last winter, he opted to put together a feature on art blogs rather than simply lash out against a phenomenon he admits he knew little about.  Even smarter, having realized that (I paraphrase) the distinctive element about blogs lies in their role as a platform from which to talk back, he let the story be told through the words of several prominent online writers--you can get the rundown here.  The result, of course, is the already-mentioned Art in America article, "Report from the Blogosphere: The  New Grass Roots," in the new issue of the magazine (but with no version as yet online, unfortunately.)

Having now read it, I'm sorry to say that, through no one's fault in particular, it's a bit dull.  Or at least it is to anyone who has more than a passing familiarity with blogs, as the questions revolve around old warhorses like editorial control, relative prestige of different media, dealing with comments and trolling, etc.  To the extent that one must assume Art in America's audience is not terribly internet savvy, that probably makes it a useful article, though it does pull the rug out from under my argument that the most interested audience for it would be online--if anything, it's the opposite.  There are a few intriguing nuggets I might return to, but for now I'll just point out two off-notes that struck me.  First, Plagens makes sure to note that he didn't mean any insult when he wrote in February that "More and more people in the audience for contemporary art would rather read Tyler Green snark somebody in his blog, Modern Art Notes, than ponder the considered judgment of Michael Kimmelman on a MOMA retrospective."  That's nice, but his further remark that he, too, prefers snark goes right by what Tyler objected to in the statement and continues to perpetuate the idea that snark is all MAN (or similar sites) do.  Second, Ed Winkleman noted his impression that his contributions to the article seemed to be more heavily edited that those of the others.  I don't know that his answer to the first question--what do the writers see as the purpose of their sites--was one that got chopped down.  Its content, however--a bald statement that the blog is a marketing tool for the gallery, and nothing more--makes it seem so and doesn't do full credit to his online work.  Sure the marketing aspect is fundamental; I don't think Ed's ever made any bones about that.  But anyone who reads his page will see that he brings much more to it than a simple pr need would suggest.  A little more context would have painted a more accurate picture, I think, though perhaps I'm wrong and Ed would disagree.

Art in America's efforts have also brought forth a little tantrum as ugly as it was predictable from one frequent target of art blogs.  I'm not going to link to it, though I'm sure anyone reading this site has already seen it or can find it easily enough.  I will repeat the gist of a comment I left elsewhere regarding the outburst:

The writer is a garden-variety troll, nothing more.  He and his editor enjoy trying to piss people off and the attention that ensues.  The Art in America article provided an occasion for them to take potshots against some people who've criticized them in the past and they took it. At the same time, that editor is quoted in the same AiA article comparing his site to a blog, trying to get some of the buzz that publication's providing. And I can understand the anxiety that leads the author to write as he does and his editor to publish it: no one pays to read him--it's hard to even conceive of doing so--and the website he's published on essentially amounts to a very useful artist/gallery listings service and auction database with a vanity publication attached. Growth in other online media and art writing only exposes that fact more and more each day.

And that's that.

3!!!!1!

I had totally forgotten about this, but thinking about some comments I made at some blogs recently reminded me that the three-year anniversary of this site had to be coming up.  I checked, and whaddya know--it's today.  So happy anniversary to MK and its first of 1,138 posts, not including this one, to date.  Production has dropped off since that first year, obviously--I know she's a pro, but it's still staggering to think that Lee Rosenbaum has produced only about 200 fewer posts in, what, about half the time--but I continue to hope things will pick up again in the future.  I should note that, for the time being, all material will likely be based on books, media coverage, etc., rather than firsthand experience of particular exhibitions.  Due to some unfortunate developments (I'm fine, thank you, don't worry), I'm not going to have much time to get out and look at things very much for perhaps a couple of months.  As I complained before, right now I don't feel like I'm missing much besides the Cornell, but still, it's a little disappointing.

I'd give you some thoughts on how things have changed since I started doing this, but the most telling fact is that I'm not able to do so--there are now so many blogs covering the visual arts, including a number in New England by paid writers (1, 2, and 3) and arts professionals (for instance), that I can't entirely keep up with it all.  Publications both national and international have gotten into it, not to mention individuals with expertise in questions of art law.  We're still waiting for things to really take off among academic art historians, but plenty of museums have gotten into it, not to mention scads of artists, interested observers, gallerists, etc.  I do my best, mostly, but I can't keep up.  So: the state of our art blogging world is strong!  Though we still stink, anyway.  Oh well.

Not Yet Three--Jonathan Richman

the time has come when we must leave you

I'm heading out of town for a while, and I doubt I'll have the chance to check email, let alone write, while I'm gone.  Back in town on May 1, posting to resume some time after that.  See you then.