Indulge me here, please: so much of my professional writing has been about structured, often grant-oriented work and epistolary pieces intended to persuade; and more often than not written to be said, sent or published under someone else's name.
I do want to post a few blog posts to exercise my own voice, which is more typically conversational and about wending threads that come together at the end. This is my second post. You can find the first one here.
These are extraordinary times. We are living history, right? It’s odd, because so much of my upbringing I have felt a sense of the ahistorical: that we are beyond history; that polemics about socialism vs. capitalism were passé; and the future was so uncertain that we could no longer see ourselves as part of a continuum, but instead near the end game.
I do want to post a few blog posts to exercise my own voice, which is more typically conversational and about wending threads that come together at the end. This is my second post. You can find the first one here.
These are extraordinary times. We are living history, right? It’s odd, because so much of my upbringing I have felt a sense of the ahistorical: that we are beyond history; that polemics about socialism vs. capitalism were passé; and the future was so uncertain that we could no longer see ourselves as part of a continuum, but instead near the end game.
Why prepare for the future? A lot of this is what defined Gen X, I think, inspired by Richard Hell and the idea of The Blank Generation. Now, we are in the midst of an unprecedented global calamity. We couldn’t shake history if we wanted to: it surrounds us now.
There have been so many folds and wrinkles of apocalyptic news. A global pandemic? Just a month or so ago Australia appeared to be burning into near oblivion. Sonoma and Napa Valleys have seen fire year after year now. And, yes, we lost Paradise.
How can we as humans continue here on Earth with some semblance of similarity to the humanity that we've held to for millennia? Teach the future. Believe it into existence. Share what you know now.
Clinging to art and culture has been important to my entire life. I am an advocate, a generalist, and enthusiast. This past December, which seems like years go now, I flew back with my wife and son to Washington DC, to visit family. We had arranged for a few days in a VRBO in the Outer Banks, North Carolina: an off-season chill-out. In mid December it was pretty much 65 degrees throughout. We walked barefoot on the beach in midwinter warmth that settled in like a wet blanket over the kitchen fire of 21st century humanity.
A highlight of the trip was being able to swing through Richmond on the drive back to see the newly installed Kehinde Wiley bronze, commissioned Rumors of War (2019). A lot has been written about this important piece that was initially unveiled in NYC before being shipped down to Richmond.
One of the things that really struck me was the connection to the history of commissioned equestrian statues, essential to any initial lecture series in European art history. A defining element of the Renaissance was the successful return to epic, equestrian statuary. Grand statuary are representative of the collective aspect of art making. No one person can make a large cast bronze sculpture alone. It requires a studio system: the forge, and all kinds of engineering mastery that is typically not embodied by the artist themselves.
Wiley understands well the timeless tradition of collective art making and the importance of the studio. In that process one comes to appreciate the significance of training others. It was also so magical to see the families surrounding the sculpture in its long-term home outside the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, making memories.
Two other exhibitions were on display during my time in D.C. with my father, siblings and nephews, namely Hokusai: Mad about Painting at the now-called Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art, the Freer Gallery of Art and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery; and a terrific, once-in-a-lifetime exhibition at the National Gallery of Art on Andrea del Verrocchio Verrocchio: Sculptor and Painter of Renaissance Florence. Both exhibitions were extraordinary.
The thing that struck me was how focused both Hokusai and Verrocchio were on their role as teachers, as having gifts that are essential, transferable and equally valuable in the teaching process as in their innate value of rich beauty and deep human focus. As great and impactful as both artists were in their own practice, they had an equally if not greater influence in their legacy.
From the teaching books that Hokusai left behind, we see the growth and development of an entire modern visual language, namely in the advent of Manga. The popularization of Japanese prints in Paris and across the United States also helped to give advent to a new visual language of tonalism, through Whistler and I would love to explore whether Inness was under his influence or not. Tonalism informs early photographic aesthetic practice, especially in California. Maybe more than Baudelaire or Benjamin, Hokusai could "own" the idea of the modern as one of its great progenitors, in so many ways. With Verrocchio, while being an amazing technician, he may be better known by his pupils Da Vinci and Botticelli: the future informed by its past.
Not only is Kehinde Wiley dedicated to the studio system, he is also dedicated to teaching the future. He recently launched Black Rock Senegal:
And I mean, think about it, Florence was being run by a multi-generational banking family who controlled both civic and religious politics, right? And one of Verrocchio's finest pupils Botticelli was won over by the crazy religious zealot Savonarola who came to dominate Florentine politics in 1495 until he was burned in the public square in 1498.
What about other leading artists of our times? Is Jeff Koons thinking about his legacy? David Hockney is sharing bucolic images online for the nation of Britain, but what about the future? San Francisco’s Art Institute is threatened with closure. Wiley studied there, but the city of San Francisco is lacking the kind of multi-generational wealth of Medici's or other cities and the oldest art school in town is at risk of shuttering.
Here’s hoping the Black Rock Residency can continue post-Plague, and that we all can again soon begin to embrace the future, with gifted artists working collectively in the lead, as history has proven. Yesterday I listened to a terrific shared event with Pérez Art Museum Miami director Franklin Sirmans and New York Magazine art critic Jerry Saltz, which was inspiring. Saltz has been writing beautifully about where we are right now, including a good, long, recent piece in New York Magazine entitled "The Last Days of the Art World … and Perhaps the First Days of a New One Life after the coronavirus will be very different," in which he proclaims:
There have been so many folds and wrinkles of apocalyptic news. A global pandemic? Just a month or so ago Australia appeared to be burning into near oblivion. Sonoma and Napa Valleys have seen fire year after year now. And, yes, we lost Paradise.
How can we as humans continue here on Earth with some semblance of similarity to the humanity that we've held to for millennia? Teach the future. Believe it into existence. Share what you know now.
Clinging to art and culture has been important to my entire life. I am an advocate, a generalist, and enthusiast. This past December, which seems like years go now, I flew back with my wife and son to Washington DC, to visit family. We had arranged for a few days in a VRBO in the Outer Banks, North Carolina: an off-season chill-out. In mid December it was pretty much 65 degrees throughout. We walked barefoot on the beach in midwinter warmth that settled in like a wet blanket over the kitchen fire of 21st century humanity.
One of the things that really struck me was the connection to the history of commissioned equestrian statues, essential to any initial lecture series in European art history. A defining element of the Renaissance was the successful return to epic, equestrian statuary. Grand statuary are representative of the collective aspect of art making. No one person can make a large cast bronze sculpture alone. It requires a studio system: the forge, and all kinds of engineering mastery that is typically not embodied by the artist themselves.
Wiley understands well the timeless tradition of collective art making and the importance of the studio. In that process one comes to appreciate the significance of training others. It was also so magical to see the families surrounding the sculpture in its long-term home outside the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, making memories.
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Verrocchio Measured Drawing of a Horse Facing Left (c. 1481/1483) The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Frederick C. Hewitt Fund
...may be [one of} those once owned by Giorgio Vasari, who mentions them in his life of Verrocchio as marked with measurements for accurate enlarge ment. Bearing Verrocchio's handwriting as recognized from his 1481 tax declaration, the drawings may be part of the design process for the monumental bronze equestrian statue of military leader Bartolomeo Colleoni in Venice (c. 1480-1496), completed after Verrocchio's death. Verrocchio superimposed a system of proportions with the length of one head as the basic unit of measure, following a scheme described by the ancient Roman author Vitruvius and taken up by the fifteenth-century art theorist Leon Battista Alberti.
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From the teaching books that Hokusai left behind, we see the growth and development of an entire modern visual language, namely in the advent of Manga. The popularization of Japanese prints in Paris and across the United States also helped to give advent to a new visual language of tonalism, through Whistler and I would love to explore whether Inness was under his influence or not. Tonalism informs early photographic aesthetic practice, especially in California. Maybe more than Baudelaire or Benjamin, Hokusai could "own" the idea of the modern as one of its great progenitors, in so many ways. With Verrocchio, while being an amazing technician, he may be better known by his pupils Da Vinci and Botticelli: the future informed by its past.
Not only is Kehinde Wiley dedicated to the studio system, he is also dedicated to teaching the future. He recently launched Black Rock Senegal:
Black Rock Senegal is a multi-disciplinary residency program developed by artist Kehinde Wiley that brings together an international group of visual artists, writers, and filmmakers to join him at his studio on the westernmost point of the coast of Africa. Residents will be invited to Dakar for between one and three months to live and create works at Black Rock. During their stay, residents will be introduced to local artists, artisans, and arts organizations in and around Dakar as well as in other regions of Senegal. Black Rock seeks to support new artistic creation by promoting conversations and collaborations that are multigenerational, cross-cultural, international, and cross-disciplinary. Black Rock takes its physical location as a point of departure to incite change in the global discourse around Africa in the context of creative evolution.Perhaps we can take some inspiration for thinking about the future, as we live out history now? Can we take some solace by looking back and considering how Verocchio’s (c. 1435-1488) dedication to art and teaching allowed him to vision the future, even in desperate times? His part of the world had known the Black Death only 100 years earlier (1350’s) or so. Titian would die in Venice of the plague 100 years later (1575). Does that give you a warm fuzzy “we are not alone” type feeling?
And I mean, think about it, Florence was being run by a multi-generational banking family who controlled both civic and religious politics, right? And one of Verrocchio's finest pupils Botticelli was won over by the crazy religious zealot Savonarola who came to dominate Florentine politics in 1495 until he was burned in the public square in 1498.
What about other leading artists of our times? Is Jeff Koons thinking about his legacy? David Hockney is sharing bucolic images online for the nation of Britain, but what about the future? San Francisco’s Art Institute is threatened with closure. Wiley studied there, but the city of San Francisco is lacking the kind of multi-generational wealth of Medici's or other cities and the oldest art school in town is at risk of shuttering.
Here’s hoping the Black Rock Residency can continue post-Plague, and that we all can again soon begin to embrace the future, with gifted artists working collectively in the lead, as history has proven. Yesterday I listened to a terrific shared event with Pérez Art Museum Miami director Franklin Sirmans and New York Magazine art critic Jerry Saltz, which was inspiring. Saltz has been writing beautifully about where we are right now, including a good, long, recent piece in New York Magazine entitled "The Last Days of the Art World … and Perhaps the First Days of a New One Life after the coronavirus will be very different," in which he proclaims:
Now art is being made in smaller spaces, on kitchen tables, out of things at hand, with kids nearby, cooking happening in the background, Nana washing clothes, life going on all around. This is how our species made most things over the last 50,000 years. Creativity was with us in the caves; it’s in every bone in our bodies.And it is lovely.
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