Pitching art shows

Images
Body

 This photo shows the odd nature of this show and it's paradoxical bipolar nature. My tendency towards excess and the Walker Art Center's protocol of spareness. Elizabeth Carpenter ( curator of Poison and Candy WAC 2012) tried to control the installation as I tried to tilt it towards some incoherent beauty rarely seen at the museum. As a living contemporary artist and a student of art history and critical literatures I wanted to transform the work into a giant total work (gesamtkunstwerk ) to try to loosen the musem's control over the interpretation of the huge exhibition. Elizabeth did say it (the exhibition) was a collaborative project between us . This corner in the Flickr pic is the place where for me I find this collision of brands. My excess and Elizabeth's poise and restraint (on behalf of museum). This large painting (Yiddish Phone Sex 1999) is made intimate and personal it's less confusing because it's given the respect of that huge white wall. Walker white the color at base in all galleries at the museum is a cold mint white like snow, the curator asked me if the installation wall was to be painted pink? Elizabeth was pleased when I said no let's use the mint Walker white that pervades all the galleries.  She was happy with my decision though I'd done a large pink wall and I just didn't think could do another pink wall a wall so much bigger besides I knew this would work on any color the materials were multicolored  with lots of fluorescent pigments, it was luminous, vibrant and filled the kunsthall with color.

Pitching shows is often very simple, people want a spectacle. Artists create little spectacles and some make monster sized spectacles some make tiny things and fill giant walls with them. Lately I want to do a black light show, small with notebooks or large not the issue so much as my pervasive use of fluorescent paints over 40+ years in many media. My insights into my notebooks has been greatly enchanced by looking at them in black light. Indeed having way to see a piece that deconstructed it based on where the fluorescent color is  often helpful in seeing the piece in normal white light. I have works that lose surface color but retain the luminosity when exposed to black light. Which is to say I've made discoveries over nearly 50 years of using various preparations of fluorescent pigments. I thought they would be very impermanent as the surface color fades in direct sunlight quickly. However the fluorescent luminosity remains even in stains and reveals itself under black light. Recently a friend of mine gave me tiny flashlight that projects black light it's extraordinary takes 3 AAA batteries so it's very energy intensive but the glowing luminousity is something when I look at my painting in the darkened studio room.

 I had wanted to do a black light space at Walker but it didn't happen . So it is something I look forward to doing somewhere someday. It is one of those things that I enjoy about my art and I'll share it eventually since it's implicit in the existence of all these fluorescent pigments I've used over decades. Luminosity helps us see beyond the spectrum into those ultra violet waves . It helps people see that in my art color is king!