Hi





So once again, a while has passed, I am happy to report I did get to see census ‘03. I’m sure you were all wondering....are you also wondering what I have to say about Steinhilber’s Directions show at the Hirshhorn? (and by the way, please don’t think Im obsessed with this guy, but come on, he is a little like D.C.’s Matthew Barney. Art professionals and dilettantes watch every little move he makes, while almost nothing registers with the CEO/lawyer/monied crowd. Personally, while I think there is a lot of good work being shown in galleries in DC, I admit to finding his work just about the most fascinating and interesting going on in DC, I think it's cool.)



It would be ego maniacal to think I was the only person with the Steinhilber - Friedman bugaboo, the appearance of census 03 brought that to a head for me, oh mi. So what did I think about that show? Well I though it was very graceful and installed quite well and the individuals included representative of 2003. Shocking. A show about what it it supposed to be about, I did not think they were still in existence, I had grown numb to being disappointed, so census ‘03 was quite a refresher.



Oh well, here it goes. I thought it was great. Steinhilber’s sculpture made of while paper coffee cups and grayish paper carryout drink trays was well executed. But for all it’s scale I am never as touched by these works that have more to do with actual volume than drawing with volume. For all of its vertical 20 or so feet and sheer mass of all those cups, it inspired not even a thimbleful of the awe that a ‘drawing’ done on the floor by standing an unwrapped paper towel roll on it’s razor thin edges at Numark Gallery in Summer ‘03 did. This is so sappy, but to express that much fragility, truly humbled me. It’s not easy to make other people be truly humbled by art, especially other artists.

I can only imagine that what few people have actually stumbled on this blog that don’t know me, but do know the issue and individuals of which I speak want to hear me talk about is the juxtaposition of Steinhilber and Team Response’s ‘portraits’. What about Team Response? The ‘portraits’ they had in the show were of the other six or seven artists in census ‘03. Physically the works looked in turn like architectural models, hobbyist miniature environments or a kids hand made make-believe set. Conceptually, the portraits rather than being based on “sittings” or observation, instead were based on rumor and reputation. I thought this was definitely the strongest Team Response work I have seen it’s strength coming from it’s being conceived for a show in a museum. Ideas about art, an artists life and personality, the external existence of their reputation besides, the role of a museum in sanctioning these individual artists, the publics role in looking at art, being a contemporary artist, all these ideas were rolled up like a nautilus shell, reflected as in a house of mirrors or expanded like a buddhist crystal palace. Of course I think it was more successful because it was art about art. Really, Team Response did a very similar thing with Chinese-Pizza-Chicken-Kitchen at G-Fine Art, but instead of being about art, it was skewed more towards culture. They recreated a fast food restaurant in the gallery, slightly simplifying the interior design, not offering any food and taping everything on closed circuit cameras.



I am quite anxious to see the Directions show, but I have not found the time yet. I am intrigued that Glenn Dixon in his Washington Citypaper review in the Oct. 16th issue bothers to allude to Friedman’s toothpaste drawing at all. I don’t think that saying Friedman’s wall drawing with toothpaste is nothing like Steinhilber’s drawing with toothpaste makes it so. IT'S DRAWING WITH TOOTHPASTE, for crissakes. Lord, I sound like a puritan, but a spade is a spade. The drawing that I saw at Signal 66 did not deviate enough from the Friedman catalog for me to think otherwise. Perhaps six long months have tempered my criticism, a bit, but it was still a poor choice to show this work, a criticism directed as much a the gallery that displayed it (Signal 66) as at the artist.



I’m glad Dixon mentions Tara Donovan (Blake Gopnik mentions Tony Feher - the use of soda bottles being his big linking point. Perhaps he will work the word soda into his pieces now instead of cheesecake). Mentioning these other very solid artists dilutes the toothpaste, issue which is good. Let's see when I get to actually see the show now.

So Ian, this seems to be a one way conversation at the moment. Last post was April for me, seems I'm so busy I can't even talk to myself.

Had to make known that the last few weeks the art scene has not escaped my radar. Exhibits A, B & C:

Census O3 described as a flavor of the month show at the Corcoran, I dig it.

I really dig Glenn Dixon's review of the show that was in the City Paper last week, that hipped me Team Response's caddy "artist studios" that are included in Census 03 (but I have not seen the show so I will shut up for now.)



Washington Post looks at Census 03, too. Now we're getting somewhere, the Citypaper and the Post writing about a show like this in the same week.

It's a pretty big step-two opinions out there flying around, and for once both of the columnists are talking about issues as well as the artists and they are not pandering to us.




Lastly, speaking of pandering,MAN on 8/29/03 hipped me to this Jed Perl piece in the New Republic I have not nearly finished reading it yet, but just you wait. I will have something to say about it.

review this
(my "Reader Review" from Washington Post Online-these Reader Reviews are wild-they are very, very public. If you keep your comments within reason a posted review has all the makings of a Guerilla Bill Board Takeover-by posting the following I hope I have flamed 'anonymous' a lot and Blake Gopnik a little (give that guy more to think about than relevance)

Posted by Karen Joan Topping on Apr 16, 2003

So what are we reviewing here? The artist, the Post critic Gopnik, the questionable existence of painting? Give me a break! Richter IS a master, his work IS interesting and his influence has been far reaching in his time, evident by all this talk by Gopnik about the freakin' Baader-Meinhof. The actual set up of THE SHOW at the Hirshhorn is what is on the block here, and the hanging is pale compared to Storr's vision at MOMA last year. Storr knows Art and the Artist-the Hirshhorn knows the Sunday museum goer. So if you care about art on more than the weekends, don't expect an epiphany from DC's curatorial offering.

Campello on the Richter show in Cultureflux. It's kissmet, someone said a little something, yay!

Sigh, I do not seem to have gotten a rise out of anyone over this Ducksauce piece, and on the outside this 'conversation journal' between Ian & I is slow as molasses.

No one seems to be talking more than usual about the Richter show that has been open for more than a month already. Oh, there was the Sunday Wash Post review by Blake Gopnik where he references his previous review of this show at MOMA. I just posted my own review on WP online after seeing this piece of crapulence:

Gopnik eating crow


Posted by anonymous on Mar 17, 2003
which is a 4 star anonymous reader review at the bottom of the page painting on trial - pfffft come on. If all of these types got their head out of the education system MAYBE THEY WOULD LEARN SOMETHING!
tag, Ian, I believe you were going to say something about our Richter sow, I mean show.

#1 Ian didn't post this entry, Karen did. I have to get used to this team thing.



#2 So it took me forever to make this Ducksauce thing coherent, sorry. While the Ducksauce post went live on 4/8/03, I posted it with the original date of my first draft on 3/3, for my own selfish purposed of tracking how long I stay obsessed with this idea.

I did not believe what I was reading, Modern Art Notes on 2/28/03 and posts about this show, fission/fusion, and on Dan Steinhilber in specific. One word:

D-U-C-K-S-A-U-C-E



Tyler Green describes the piece in Modern Art Notes:

"Steinhilber has adhered (invisibly) hundreds upon hundreds of tiny restaurant-sized duck sauce packets to an eightish-foot by fourish-foot rectangle on a wall. The packets are laid on in imperfect rows in such a way that they completely obscure the underlying wall. The way the light falls on the packets reveals a previously who'd-a-thunk-it variety in the orange that is duck sauce."

Is this for real?

Look at my Big Eye post on January 28, 2003, right here on this blog! JUST before this one!!! See this link from Spring 2000!. Frank Gonzales online thesis show.

Once again, I am certifiably freaked out. here is Steinhilber's ducksauce Steinhilber should be freaked out. Does he know he's done it again? Look at Tom Friedman's toothpaste painting. If you saw Steinhilber's installation at Signal 66 here in DC in 2002, one of his pieces was a huge untitled work, an abstract painting done with toothpaste on canvas that was so derivative of Tom Friedman's work (also "untitled" I may add) that despite it's minty aroma, left a bad taste in my mouth.


Steinhilber seems to pretty much tow the company line when it comes to "the transformation" of everyday commercial products into "formal constructions" that "engage in a dialogue with painting and installation" according to the blurb on him in the Fission/Fusion catalog. I thereby find it IMPOSSIBLE that he has not heard of Tom Friedman, who is hot enough to have a snappy little Phaidon book out about him with lots of pretty pictures. I feel more and more that is an ethical issue-does Steinhilber know he's presented works almost identical to other artists, in the case of toothpaste and ducksauce? I am familiar with Picasso's famous mantra about his work "If there's something to be stolen, I steal it." Keeping that in mind, at least Picasso tells us he's not above stealing others ideas-he's honest about that. If Steinhilber knows about these other pieces, what is he trying to accomplish by showing them with out any reference to the other artists?

I feel like a ratfink because I like Steinhilber's work; in fact I absolutely adore most of it. His AU thesis in 2002 where he put water filled notebook page protectors on the walk into AU's Watkins building structures. This show was followed by the show at MOCA where watercolor paint was added to the water. The piece where the colored water was injected into bubble wrap knocked me out. These waterworks seemed so smart and honest and personal to me.

If I see him do one more piece like toothpaste or ducksauce, I am going to be really, really sad. I mean how could this guy who has just finished being a full time MFA grad-student not know the Tom Friedman piece? Gonzales and Friedman are not household names, but Friedman has had a solo exhibit at MOMA, that's pretty damn noteworthy and noticeable. Steinhilber's been getting some decent recognition in this town (and nationally if you count Basel-Miami) , so how is it that the 'press' has not been a little more up on tracking down other artist purveyors of this borderline concept art that flirts with minimalist and formalist painting?


I think the major word here is 'interpretation'-and what is galling me is that there is no mention of these Steinhilber works being a derivation or interpretation if they are-and that infuriates me. People are going to show the work and apparently Mr. Steinhilber is not going to ever both to mention in his titles or blurbs or talks with curators that he's playing off of Mr. Friedman's and Mr. Gonzales's work (if he knows that he is). Really, for that matter, do the newspapers, gallery owners, art-dilettantes all get around enough to see the derivation? Is the art viewing public so busy and so distracted that they can't recall Friedman's one man show at MOMA? Is no one else going to say anything? I find that odd.

On March 13, 2003 in the Galleries column, I have to say, Jessica Dawson hit what I am trying to say on the nose, except she was talking about Mary Woodall's photo's at Connor Contemporary Art where Dawson is nice enough to mention another artist to Ms. Woodall by mentioning parenthetically about her photo's " (They have also, it must be said, been done. Japanese artist Naoya Hatakeyama comes immediately to mind. He shot his "Slow Glass" series through wet windshields in 2001.)".

This is what is freaking me out so much, people rant on about there not being anything 'new' in art. Has anyone stopped to consider what it means if there is nothing new in thought? It may sound childish, but I have invested a lot of time and money into art in my life, so it rankles me. If Frank Gonzales, Dan Steinhilber and Karen Joan Topping all come up with the brilliant idea to glue DUCKSAUCE packets to an art gallery wall, what the hell does that mean? It changes my perspective, has the audience that went to Fission/Fusion seen ART or a social phenomena. Apparently there are a bunch of us out there obsessed with Ducksauce. Or maybe there are overloads that look like ducksauce packets that are planting this collective image in our mind and they are going to take over the over the human race - a la Arthur Clarke's book Childhood's End. Conscious of the other guy's work or not it's weird, a toothpaste and ducksauce coinky-dink is too much for me.


I'm an artist myself and I go to enough gallery openings and know enough artists to know that when you show people your work or slides, or even just describe an un-built concept, in conversation these DC art dilettantes start off with "your work sounds like so-de-so", or "did you see so-n-so's show at blahdeblah's in NY" or "that idea reminds me of this English artist from the 80's snark de snark". Granted, most of the time, looking up one of these so-de-so names is barely interesting to me and makes me question if the person that thought to mention it in reference to my work ACTUALLY looked at or thought about MY work. I almost always try to follow these leads up because you HAVE TO. So if the DC insider art scene is so lame that there is not a gallery owner or newspaper columnist ready to tell Steinhilber about the Gonzales or the Friedman piece, that is pretty freakin lame. Let me be the wake up call before it happens again.

I wish I could have got this posted when Fission/Fusion was still up, but that did not happen. This is a BIG subject that still needs more attention than the little rant that I've written here. Anyone have a spare $10, 000 that would allow me to work on it for 6 months or so? Or, to be honest, I'd love to hear from all of these art guys to see if they find this spontaneous generation of art as freaky as I do. Artist's working together on shows is interesting, but artists that have never heard of each other coming up with the EXACT same presentation or concept is weird-which makes it SUPER interesting, right? This is not a thesis, a textbook entry, I'm asking the art community to link together their memory of particular artists and particular shows here in DC. You are only going to be able to follow me if you have seen what I've seen. From my side it seems that the subject of memory or collective memory in art just got bigger, I dub it "spontaneous memory" or de-ja'-rt.

Do you see THIS? Do I know this person, Kevin Landers? I know I've already taken a few photos in a planned series of almost identical work that I started sometime last year. Weird. When I was taking my pictures on the street did the same thing just spontaneously generate at the same time for this Landers fellow? I wonder how many others there are out there. Has this ever happened to you?

It has happened to me before. Looking at Grad schools in 2001, I ran into this Hunter Spring 2000 thesis show online. Scroll down to see a detail of Frank Gonzales wall covered in ducksauce packets. I was mucking around with and idea similar to this at about the exact same time this guy was doing it, but I never made the piece and I never talked about it. I emotionally find it utterly impossible that this spontaneously generated thing could happen to me twice. Right now I am thinking it would be pretty cool to get in touch with Mr. Landers and Mr. Gonzales and see what the hell they think of me or see what other works we had replicated with out any foreknowledge of each other. shiver.

Even scarier, what does this mean for art or for the human impulse to make things, it's not like coming up with algebra or the wheel or iron ore. These are all functional things waiting to be discovered. It's also not like we all did a painting of a car, or a girl, or a vase of flowers, is it? There is something very, very weird and different conception and representation right now.

So start talking, look at groupiegirldc to start talking about the Nitrate Hymnal, I guess