Conceptual Art

This has been sitting in my drafts folder since late December. Time to do something with it!

Again I've been re-reading the Irving Sandler memoirs, 'A Sweeper-Up After Artists,' and I was quite surprised to read how important he felt Frank Stella's art to be. He credited Stella with dealing 'the death blow to academic gesture painting...' when Stella was 23 years old. Stella was a participant in the 16 Americans show at the Museum of Modern Art in 1959.

I've seen some of Frank Stella's paintings and didn't pay much attention to them at the time. Lots of symmetrical black stripes on an otherwise monochrome canvas. What Sandler points out is that Stella considered the idea more important than the execution of a work. Sol Lewitt is well known as a conceptual artist and wrote extensively about it. Lewitt often had assistants execute a work from his sketches or designs. Apparently, the Philadelphia Museum of Art acquired Lewitt's Blue Ceiling and what Lewitt delivered to the museum was a set of drawings for others to use a guides in painting the ceiling.

It's got me thinking again about a piece I've wanted to make for a while, but I can't tell you just yet...

Rick Clise

P.S. It's sometimes funny what the spell-checker suggests for words not in its dictionary. For 'Lewitt' it suggested 'lewd.' Humh, perhaps the spell-checker believes in aesthetic beauty?

Chance in art

I've just read a wonderful book called, 'A Sweeper-Up After Artists,' by Irving Sandler. Sandler is a retired American art critic and this is his memoir of over 50 years as an art critic in the New York art world.

His contemporaries include the big names of American Art: Willem de Kooning, Mark Rothko, Barnett Newman, David Smith, Frank Stella, Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, Jackson Pollack. Many of my earliest impressions of art were based on the works of people like these.

One of the people Sandler writes about is composer John Cage. Sandler considered Cage to be 'the most influential art critic/theoretician in the second half of the twentieth century.'

Cage is well known for his work titled 4'33" which I've written about elsewhere. A pianist opens the piano and sits at it for four minutes and thirty-three seconds without playing a note. The 'performance' includes the physical act of the pianist and the ambient noises from within and around the performance hall.

According to Sandler, Cage's idea was that life and art were inseparable. '... Consequently, any sound or material, by itself or in any combination, whether intended or not, is art.' This would be a challenging concept for most people paying to see a performance.

This makes me think of the art of Bruce Nauman. I have only seen a little of his work and at first I wondered why it would be called 'Art.' At the Tate Modern I saw a video piece of his that was shot overnight in his studio. 'Nothing' happened for most of the video but at some point his cat made an appearance, and mice ran through the studio (apparently the cat wasn't there at the time), and a barn owl flew through the studio. In the PBS series 'Art:21' Nauman has created a stairway out of different sizes of paving stones, and when one walks the stairway he or she has to think about each step as they are different. I'm now thinking that Nauman is presenting 'life' as art, which might fit in with Cage's concept.

When I was a teenager I visited a university in British Columbia and met some conceptual artists. This meeting had a significant effect on me and shaped some of my interests in art. One work they showed me consisted of three pine trees in a forest of trees and through the trunks of three of the trees they had bored a one inch diameter hole and lined it with plastic tubing. By looking through one tube at just the right height and direction I could see through all three trees along that line. Doing so relied on the wind not blowing the trees out of alignment, and the work was temporary as it would fail once the trees grew a little. A very simple concept and execution but it really hit me.

As a young person when I heard about, and saw, some of the 'blank' canvases and monochromatic paintings I wondered if the artist had actually originally painted something of significance on that canvas then painted over the work in all white or all black, trusting the viewer to believe the artist that something of significant 'art' actually existed under the black or white painted canvas. Did the artist have a secret work?

I played around with jig saw puzzles, turning the pieces upside down and dividing the mixed-up pieces into three piles, then painting the backs of one pile red, the next blue and the last yellow. My interest was to see what pattern on the back, if any, would appear when the pieces were turned right side up and reassembled into the puzzle.

I love the concept of John Cage's work 4'33" but I would have been bored and angry 'listening' to it. I wouldn't have been ready for it. Likewise, watching Nauman's video works of him bouncing off a corner had me wondering what game he had been able to play on the critics and art intelligentsia. I like the concept of chance, and jazz improvisation sometimes really moves me, yet I also love the music of Philip Glass which is completely planned and doesn't seem to have any element of chance in it.

My larger metal sculptures to date have been tightly planned and executed, generally drawn in a CAD program that eliminates all chance and spontaneity in the pieces. Chance features in some of my newer mild steel rod and plate projects where I use Microsoft Excel as a random number generator to determine the lengths of some of the 16mm threaded rods used in the pieces. I'm about to start making some outdoor pieces based on rolled pipe pieces where I used somewhat random radiuses in rolling galvanised steel pipe sections.

Ah, it's all fun, isn't it?

Rick Clise

'Assembly Required' - the new Barbecue

Beth's been after me for about a year to replace our original 4 burner barbecue. I don't know why - it works just fine: put meat on, burn meat, take meat off, eat. I think body rust and years of caked-on cooking residue add a lot of character to the appliance, and flavour to the meat. And having a black baked enamel hood actually go gray in colour is the mark of a well-used, and well-loved, portable incineration device. Plus, it's been a member of the family for almost as long as the kids have been.

Well, no matter what they say to the contrary, a husband never (ultimately) gets in the way once a wife has made a decision. Everyone knows that dripping water can wear through stone, just as... nope, better stop before I get clobbered.

Anyway, after listening to a lot of lectures about the merits of replacing the aged barbie, I caved-in and started shopping for one. I did feel like I was doing something unkind and unjust behind an old friend's back. But I know where my bread is buttered. So old friend or not, it had to go.

Barbecues have gone through amazing evolution over the past few years. There's one for every price point from about $150 for a flat-top 4 burner one up to literally thousands of dollars for stainless steel 12 burner 'professional grilling centre.'

I had actually repainted the body of our barbie but that didn't last. I was about to have it grit blasted and repainted, and had already cut new legs and frames for it from galvanised steel tubing in my workshop, but that will have to wait for another opportunity.

Knowing what goes into making a barbecue my price point for a new barbecue was pretty low. Less than $400, thank you.

After much looking I decided that the 4 burner, hooded, Garth B2 barbecue would meet our needs so I bought one from Bunnings. Well, buying one actually consists of taking away three very large boxes weighing: 39.5kg, 17.7kg, and 38.1kg respectively. Lucky I had my trailer attached to the car when I visited Bunnings that day. The three boxes set me back $399, so the price point was reached. And it has a side burner (wok burner?) thrown-in as well for that price. Beth had romantic notions of me doing stir fried vegetables on the barbie while toasting snags. Hah! I can't think of once when we have stir-fried anything while barbecuing.

Are you a masochist? Don't answer that. But if you are, and you have some spare time, like a lot of spare time, think seriously about buying these three boxes as you will love the assembly experience! Think putting together junior's bike is fun the night before Christmas, just try one of these Garth barbecues. It will keep you occupied for hours. And I think that the experience of assemblying one is better than playing those computer exploration games as once you have mastered it you can eat from it. By contrast, who ever got full from 'Myst'?

First let me say what the the people at Garth do well (always start with the positive...):
1) Their packaging is beautiful. The product might be made in China but the graphics and presentation are very classy.
2) The wheels are really nice.
3) (Much later...) the electronic ignition system is pretty high-tech!

Now let me say what could be improved:
1) The instruction manual, while looking nice, would be better if the parts used to assemble the legendary B2, were actually labelled as to what they are. There is a picture of the components in the Cabinet Assembly Instructions booklet but several of the panels are very close in appearance and it only becomes apparent after tightening several screws that the panel that should have been installed as the bottom panel is actually the top panel.
2) It would be helpful if the packers (in China, I assume) didn't install the drip tray upside down in the cabinet - to save space so it all fits nicely into box 3 of 3 (weighing 39.5kg)) with no way of getting it out except by removing the fancy front panel on which the control knobs fit.
2a) But while the front panel is off you can actually get the fibre washer and small nut onto the extralong screw that holds the leg onto the cabinet frame. Garth could weld a captive nut in that place to save the budget-concious purchaser/assembler wasting valuable time farting about trying every trick he/she knows to get the darned washer and nut onto these screws. But that would probably put the price point well over the $399.50 price point.
3) The (really nice) wheels are paired on the other end of the barbie with the heavy-duty castors. The heavy-duty castors with tightening nuts that are too thin for normal tools to be able to grip them to tighten them despite the instructions say, "Using a spanner, tighten the castor wheels into the castor cup on each end of the short legs." About the only spanner you'd be able to get any purchase on those tightening nuts would be completely anorexic. Nothing I have in my workshop fits them.
4) 'Axle' is spelled 'axle' not 'axel.' At least when referring to things that (really nice) wheels fit onto. (Just being petty but that's what happens in a situation like this...) Temperature rising...
5) Don't try assembling one of these barbecues next to the pool while 4 kids are celebrating a 11th birthday. It isn't conducive to a relaxed experience. And yes, I think Garth should have included that warning in the assembly manual!
6) If you need 8 phenolic spacers to provide heat insulation between the barbecue cabinet and the frame then provide at least 8 of them. 7 is a nice number but not quite enough to make the barbie, and this is a very early step in the assembly process.
6a) If Garth does provide at least 8 of the phenolic spacers then it should ensure that the purchaser/assembler is warned not to misplace one of them. Just in case...
7) Why didn't they tell me that I need an offset Philips head screwdriver to tighten the screws under one side of the 'side burner' ledge. ARGH!

Tomorrow I'll tackle installing the hood and hopefully will have some more to report on that experience.

'Smokin' Rick Clise

P.S. The hood fits. The barbeque works. For all those other Garth purchasers out there I hope your assembly experience provides you with as rewarding an experience as mine did. All I can say is that the meat I'm going to cook on this machine is going to taste so good!

Crikey! December already!

It looks like I've been asleep at the wheel - no blog entries since October! Nope, just have been busy with different projects.

Fang and I caught-up today for a long overdue coffee/jabber. LearnDog powers-on but I played the devil's advocate and told Fang that he has to have a one-liner explaining what LearnDog is all about. He needs a message for the masses.

I remembered my enthusiasm several years ago when I first learned about the capabilities of Geographical Information Systems (GIS) but was then frustrated by my inability to articulate to others why it was so interesting. Combining data with geographical information - industry and government have been doing it for ages, and if you live in the US you can even do graphing with Microsoft Excel using geographic information about the US as a dataset. It's a no-brainer now. Back then it was hot stuff.

Watch LearnDog.

Fang's son is a budding muso, playing a very mean guitar. But he is finding that breaking into the music industry is very difficult. This is common theme - how does one get the world to take notice of something new, exciting (and in the case of LearnDog - beneficial!) I'm finding the same thing in the visual arts world, but I am making some headway. In October my sculpture, 'Ball Bearing' was a finalist in the (Woollahra Council's bloody Lotus Notes web system won't let me give you the correct URL!!!) Woollahra Small Sculpture Prize in Sydney. Over 300 entries and my little sculpture was one of 40 finalists, and the only one from South Australia. Very cool, I thought. And last month I learned that my much larger sculpture, 'Silent Embrace' was selected as one of 32 finalists for the Montalto Sculpture Prize in Melbourne for exhibition from early February until end of April 2006.

In 2006 I'll have sculptures in at least 3 different group exhibitions and I've been offered a solo exhibition in 2007 here in Adelaide. So things are beginning to happen.

See my website for additional works.

I've been talking with some of the owners of commercial art galleries in Adelaide and have the good fortune of knowing one of them socially. I asked him what would be the ideal artist for a gallery and he said one who already has a developed market. Make sense - eliminate as much risk as possible by finding someone whose work is already in demand. My feeling is that getting recognition in the larger markets of Sydney and Melbourne gives an artist more credibility when talking to Adelaide folks - if people in Sydney and Melbourne think the work is good, it must be! ;-)

But how does one get started? 'Tis a common issue in the arts. It certainly helps to get a lucky break. In my case some good things are happening. And that is so, so nice to see!

Rick Clise