Bits and Pieces

Robert Boyd



Have a fantastic Texphrastic day.Harbeer Sandhu got a Creative Capital grant to start his art blog in December, and has now rolled out the blog, Texphrastic. The title is a play on the word "exphrasis." Sandhu explains, "Ekphrasis, or ekphrastic writing, is writing which is done in dialog with visual art. It may or may not even refer, explicitly, to the visual piece it speaks to." But so far, he has written about specific artworks, specifically artworks that have been displayed and are done, never to be seen again. Texphrastic doesn't aim for currency.

"I will be publishing one or two posts per week. I do not intend to keep up with current shows. I want to make a hard distinction between Art (with a capital “a”) and art events. This is a place for art criticism, not for show reviews. [...] If you want timely reviews of current shows–there are many other publications already doing that. I aim to write long-form criticism and independent ekphrastic responses of literary quality–I aim for depth, not breadth, and certainly not currency–and I hope these essays will remain pertinent and interesting long after the artists they discuss have moved on to new projects." [About Texphrastic]

This is quite different from my own approach. Occasionally we'll discuss art that is not currently on display, but generally speaking, if there is an exhibit that I'm interested in but which has closed, I won't write about it. My thinking here is that I want readers to have an opportunity to see it and form their own opinions.

But the internet has a long memory. Shows I wrote about in 2011 continue to get hits today (literally). So even when I write about now, I know I am also writing about the past. Sandhu is just a little more honest about it.



Now you know. Jon Hamm and Elmo explain what sculpture is.

 
Johnny Marr

Rock star has good taste. "Which painters inspire you? Uh, well, Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns — the obvious people, I guess. I very much like people from the sixties: David Hockney and Lucian Freud. I like Susan Hiller. She did some really interesting things. I like the example they set: that you do work come rain or shine, because that’s what you do." ["Johnny Marr on Going Solo, Turning 50, and Fond Memories of the Smiths," Nisha Gopalan, Vulture, April 20, 2013]

 

Now you know, part 2.Harold Rosenberg, the great critic who coined the term "action painting," created Smokey the Bear.



Now you know, part 3.Carol Tyler drew a massive three-part comic memoir called You'll Never Know (published as You'll Never Know book one: A Good and Decent Man, You'll Never Know book two: Collateral Damage, and You'll Never Know book three: Soldier's Heart.) She gave a talk at the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at USC which was recorded. This video is long--an hour and a half--but it is astonishing in the detail it goes into about how she constructed the book, how she constructed each page--even how she mixed the colors she used.