Editor's Life Unedited

Valentine's Day New Normal

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 07:26:12 GMT

So here was my plan for Valentine's Day... we drive to Union Station. We take the red line train to Hollywood to see THE ARTIST at the ARC-LIGHT theater a short walk from the Vine Street station. Then we walk over to a curated art show with Carlos Batts, Dave Naz, April Flores and others in it. Supposed to be a big opening. Then we take the redline BACK to Union Station for dinner reservations at TRAXX Restaurant.

So we drive over, park, get our red line ticket and head to the train platform. It is about 4, we talk that maybe Leigh will get a drink at a cocktail lounge before the 5:10 PM movie...
...But the train platform is a little TOO crowded. There are three sheriffs and a German Shepherd among the throng of people. Then another sheriff pushing a cart appears. It is loaded with a folding table, traffic cones and reflective signs that say something about a checkpoint and the right to search your car. he is followed by a custodian with an empty trashcan on wheels. They go thru the platform and take the elevator up to another part of Union Station. An announcement comes over the PA apologizing for the delay and includes some indecipherable verbiage that includes the line "other means of transportation" ...groans from the crowd are released like a collective, odorless fart as people stream to the stairs back up to the station. Many stay, though.

"Baby, we gotta get the fuck out of here and find a different way to Hollywood," I tell her and she is not in an arguing mood. We make our way up and pas a digital screen. It is 4:19 PM. We're downtown and we got to get to Hollywood. Knowing there could be some scary bizarre terror problem illustrating the new normal in American society, I take a side exit out of Union Station and walk to Sunset. It is three blocks to the 2 Bus line, Sunset Boulevard. We walk up and a bus is just departing. Leigh doesn't mind, there are open bus benches. We sit and wait. One girl says there was a fire in the tunnel at the Civic Center Stop and the whole red line is shut down. Who knows. What good would it do to know? The bus finally comes. We get seats. It slugs through traffic faster than a snail, slower than a bicycle.

Leigh recalls that THE ARTIST is playing at The Vista Theater. We will be by there soon. I check. Nope, we missed the screening. If it had started at the same time as the ARC-LIGHT we would have made it as we pass the Vista at 5:08 PM. We finally make it Sunset and Vine at 5:25. We walk into the lobby to see if anything is playing. It is kind of a dead-zone of a time. Everyone is home getting ready for the big date or already on the second cocktail of a wild one. The next show is a 5:40 screening of SafeHouse. This is a film I would never voluntarily go see, but one I can happily sit thru. It is a "guy's film" with Denzel in it to draw in the ladies. There are seven couples in the whole theater. The film is way better than I imagined and Denzel is the best part, just as Leigh predicted. Our Valentine's Day streak of seeing a movie continues. It stretches back a few years. Last year we saw The King's Speech, one year we saw the Julian Schnabel Diving Bell film.

Leigh loves to stay for the credits but this time we are both out of there, fast, and we run back to the bus stop - no art show tonight, we gotta eat! Ten people are waiting for the 2 headed downtown. I ask out loud to anyone listening, "Does anyone know if the Red Line is running, it was shut down earlier tonight?!?!" and one guy answers "Yeah it is running again." The only way we are going to get to Traxx on time was the subway, but we had to run up Vine two blocks to Hollywood Boulevard. We did this, a fast walk not anywhere near a jog but no one would have said we were dawdling.

The train platform there was crowded but people were sure the train was going to be running. Finally it came, slowly, while the clock ticked at the same fast pace. On the train the guy sitting across from me had a freemason's ring and I asked him about it. He was shocked I could spot the "G" logo from my distance but it was not a tiny ring. He explained to us that the Freemasons are the Jedi Knights of the world. We could have seen Star Wars Episode One in 3-D but took Denzel instead. We made it to the station and to TRAXX, the 5-Star gourmet paradise at the train station at 8:35 PM and had a wonderful, romantic Valentine's Day dinner, no terror attack, no police search, no masonic conspiracy. That we were able to enjoy the entire thing and laugh the whole way through (well except for the five minutes when leigh's feet started hurting walking to the bus bench) is a testament to loving every moment we spend together even when a tactical alert spills us out into the streets.

Artist Leigh Salgado

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 06:28:10 GMT

Amazing ten minute film about artist Leigh Salgado in her studio:

DESSERT

Wed, 11 Jan 2012 08:08:24 GMT

The Custard Cup at PHILLIPE'S is one of the best desserts in Los Angeles. It is almost exactly the same as it was 25 years ago (it is a smidge lighter as are most dairy-based things these days because the milk is just lighter and less milky because of all the stupid propaganda about diet that insists you listen to a chart instead of your own body). The tapioca cup is bland. The Custard Cup is dynamite. I had one tonight and it was the same perfect light watery nutmeg custard as always. Had not been to Phillipe's in a long time.

My E-Mail Might Be For You!

Wed, 11 Jan 2012 01:40:36 GMT

I get lots of email, this is an opportunity I would like to pass on to you if you are an artist who is interested...

Hello Mat,

My name is Barbara Lee and I am the media specialist at California Community Foundation (CCF), the public foundation for Los Angeles County since 1915.

I wanted to introduce myself and share news that the CCF Fellowship for Visual Artists is now taking applications for 2012. As an important member of the arts and media community, I wanted to share news of this opportunity for you, your friends, and others who may be interested.

The fellowship is a unique investment in both the artistic and business development of emerging and mid-career artists in Los Angeles. We’ve distributed nearly $2 million in $15,000 - $20,000 grants to hundreds of artists since its establishment in 1988.

More information on the fellowship and former fellows can be found at www.calfund.org/artistgallery. Please let me know if you have any questions and are interested in being notified when the 2012 fellows are announced this July.

Thanks and a happy new year!

Barbara Lee | MEDIA SPECIALIST

DESSERT BLOG

Tue, 10 Jan 2012 06:32:42 GMT

My New Year's Dessert blogging has already skipped a bit, but it is not because I have been skipping dessert, oh hell no.

The main reason I have not been blogging is that most of my desserts this year have been ice cream at home after dinner. Even when we have dined out I have opted for ice cream at home. Lemon Sorbet. Coconut. That has been about it. The two desserts I had at restaurants last week were as followed:

Melted Belgian Chocolate. This is a hot chocolate drink served at SYRUP downtown. They heat up a chocolate bar until it melts and make a beverage around it. Thick, rich, hot, bittersweet... it tastes like something that Louis XIV would have his royal kitchen make for you as an honored guest, and there it was in a to-go cup on the way back to the office. But it made the 7 Street crackheads and trannies seem like the King's court on a cold, cold evening.

Now for a lousy story. At Cole's I ordered my dip sandwich WITHOUT BREAD. They have a whole way of doing it gluten free there and it was great, truly a delicious bowl of meat (i ordered the pork), hot beef juice, garlic fries with stinging tang and seriously one of the best pickle slices i have ever tasted. Best of all, they made me feel totally okay about being gluten free in a restaurant whose whole purpose is to soak bread. So we were on a roll and I saw that they had blackberry pie. I explained to the waitress that I eat around the crust and she said that would not be too difficult. Well, she was right. it was not too difficult. The problem is there is literally (and I measured this) one heaping tablespoon of blackberry-laden filling in Cole's Blackberry Pie. There is a thick bread crust, a thick back side and a crust topping so thick that when I broke it off it looked like two medium scones on my plate. So five bucks for a tablespoon of blackberry jelly. Ehhhh...

Coagula Art Journal Webisode #1

Sun, 08 Jan 2012 08:49:22 GMT

okay, try this instead of TeeVee...

Was That Car Fire Arson?

Mon, 02 Jan 2012 09:55:27 GMT

As December wound down... an arsonist or plural set over 40 fires in a hellish night of "street art" vandalism - starting many of the fires by igniting cars.

Weird... on December 18 I was out shooting moonrise pictures, an eerie red crescent moon was rising...

On the right there is the moon, but it is about to be a co-star. Look to the left. Okay now look again...

KA BOOM:

That is a car blowing up. I was standing in my front yard and the boom blew off. I did not stick around, btw, I ran in the house and called the heat (pun intended), then cautiously came out and snapped this shot. Then the horn went off and the headlights went on - I adjusted the camera for this shot...

Parked car explodes, burns, fire department foams out the fire and Huntington Park Tow takes it away.

Next morning I go across the street and take a few shots. The car is gone except for a FORD bubble and a remnant of the rear view mirror. Some melted plastic and minor damage to the building adjacent to the parked car...

Google streetview 2621 e 54th st 90255 all you want, no clues that I can find.

Was this a trial run or does shit like exploding cars in the middle of the night just happen ...or did that red moonrise have anything to do with it?

Last Thoughts on 2011

Mon, 02 Jan 2012 05:57:44 GMT

Hey yeah, so there goes 2011. Gotta write what I did this year before I forget...

Published a book of Gerald Locklin's poetry YOU NEED NEVER LOOK OUT A WINDOW The Complete Coagula Poems Volume One. Got the book up on Create Space and published a limited edition of 100 hardcover copies signed by the author, numbered 1-100 and including a print of the paperback's art work by artist Sharon Suhovy.

Curated TEL - ART - PHONE which I am proud of as pretty much a lifetime achievement, curatorially speaking. The ambitious show was realized becuase of the astounding Beacon Arts Building exhibition space.

CURATORS COLLEGE: Could not have done that show without my assistant Bryan nor without the help of the show's co-curators from the Curators College seminar I organized.

Curated TOP TEN NOW as the Avant-L.A. exhibition in Downtown L.A. to run concurrent with the neighboring Platform Art Fair.

Wrote many essays for the Huffington Post that reached a wide audience.

Spoke to the art department (seemed like a crowd of over a hundred) at Azusa-Pacific University about writing about art.

Organized a Summer Studio Tour over three weekends to artists' studios around Los Angeles.

Wrote and delivered a major (4,000+ words) essay for a book on COOP that should be published some time in 2012.

Totally got into photography (with my late-2010 purchased Leica camera) and even had a "studio visit" from a fine art photographer I admire and was encouraged to publish a book of my photos.

Stayed sober (18th straight year).

Remained in love with my girlfriend Leigh (9th straight year).

Kept the Angels baseball team honest and the hardcore Angels fans entertained running Halos Heaven Dot Com writing under my sports pen name of Rev Halofan (6th straight year).

Went to Vegas twice (July and August) and San Diego for the holidays.

Discarded Art Essay Fragment

Tue, 20 Dec 2011 23:17:37 GMT

This did not make the cut of a recent essay but here it is as its own little saying:
If the appetizers were as bad at Los Angeles restaurants as often as the art is regularly terrible at the galleries and museums, we would have all died of food poisoning. Since bad art does no damage to our eyes, perhaps that is why we slog on. Like a losing season for your favorite sports team, there are always a few sweet victories to relish.

Getty Curators Are Demonstrably Amateur Hacks

Tue, 06 Dec 2011 07:16:18 GMT

This is a defense of the legacy of a great artist. This artist is a very nice person. My assertion here of his greatness is most emphatically not nice. My tone here reflects the crimes, not the artist.

I swore I was over writing about the half-assed “take” on Los Angeles called Pacific Standard Time that the Getty has foisted on Southern California. It’s sloppy excuse for scholarship would not pass muster at a Community College interview for teaching assistants. Its clique of out of town assholes retelling the L.A. narrative is insulting. The complicity of the local art press is one more reminder that everyone in the art world media is a clever whore or a dumb slut. The compliant pleasure at accepting received opinion of the survey show’s “importance” is a reminder that the dumb sluts are the intellectual giants in a town that only cares about the art world because it is easier to slum around than the movie business.

I swore I was done and had moved beyond it. But god damn the Getty if I didn’t just get shocked all over again. The exclusion of artists is always a touchy subject. It is the curator’s prerogative, of course, as one can see the curator like a film director, excising scenes from a film that do not follow a vision of sorts. Some actors end up on the cutting room floor. The curator as artist is a legitimate endeavor. But when the institution uses the rubric of “scholarship” to exclude perfectly qualified and interesting people from curating shows, well then, the artistry of curating is off the negotiating table. If the Getty is hiring curators who are academically qualified as scholars in the field, the shows in their Pacific Standard Time should be, well, scholarly; the shows should reflect research in a subject. When MOCA had its big Street Art show earlier this year, the curating was done by non-scholars and presented itself as a survey done by people who had witnessed the rise of the movement first hand. Bravo. Do you know how low and dirty it feels to insist that the Getty could learn a thing or two about curatorial integrity from Roger Gastman? Scholarship implies that a survey will, in fact, reflect the thing which is being studied, objectively, rather than thru the investment portfolio of some dude’s fanboy commercial favorites.

The Getty is delivering an extensive survey of the history of Southern California art from 1945 thru 1980. Most of the curators of the show were not in Southern California at that time. Christopher Knight mocked East Coast coverage of Pacific Standard Time, implying that the exhibit was curated with New York in mind, curated so that New York would take it seriously. Why mock those East Coast writers? When I look at PST, all I see is scholarly careerists groveling for an East Coast gig (Knight himself is an East Coast transplant and brings his elitist sensibilities to every segregated review he writes). The whole contemptible enterprise has been a handshake between art dealers dusting off crap out of the attic and academic curators dusting off their tenure applications.

The list of shows in Pacific Standard Time is long. The artists that were included vary in degrees of merit, quality, relevance, impact and aesthetics. The importance of all of these categories is debatable and some of them can be entirely subjective. Many of the artists who are included in these shows are ridiculously inconsequential players whose artwork is of little merit and had no role in shaping anything about the Los Angeles art scene or anything else. But they were friends of friends and someone had the old pile of art in the garage. And yet still we can be happy that someone made some art at some point in time and years later was acknowledged for going to a party or two with Billy Al Bengston or having sold Walter Hopps a couple of greenies. That is all fine. If this were a survey put together by five art dealers out to bid up the price of what they have taking up space at a public storage unit, it would be understandable, laudable perhaps. But the vile scholars of the Getty are using this flood of nobodies and their dusty, dinky relics from the Nixon administration to appear encyclopedic when what these curatorial twits really are is “half-assed”.

Here is my beef. Nowhere in the sprawling Pacific Standard Time exhibits is a giant of the Los Angeles art scene from that time period. Muralist Kent Twitchell is not included anywhere in a survey of Los Angeles art from 1945 to 1980. Considering that this is an epic sweep of the multitudes of movements percolating in a particularly expansive time period, this oversight is unconscionable considering Twitchell’s contributions, legacy, talent, appeal, popularity, impact and innovations. This is an oversight that kills the credibility of the Getty’s efforts, curatorially self-promoting as they were, mask of scholarship and veneer of academic objectivity be damned.

If you lived in Los Angeles in the 1970s, you interacted with Kent Twitchell’s art. His Freeway Lady mural was the region’s icon of the decade. In an era before it was realized that public art could function as a money laundering method for civic-embedded vermin, Kent Twitchell was the only public artist for a majority of Angelenos during that time. His Steve McQueen house on Union Avenue, his Strother Martin on a Hollywood apartment building, but most of all his Freeway Lady overlooking the 101 Freeway... these were the monuments of a generation of rhetoric about giving good things to all the people, of finding common ground in a search for better things. The mysterious freeway woman looked at a million visitors a week and shared a mystery with each of them... with that eerie moon and magic carpet of an afghan only deepening the wonder of who she was and why she was there and what it all meant. And what was art in our lives?

That was street art that insisted we do anything but “obey”. It insisted we imagine; it didn’t tell us anything more than to complete the story. The Freeway Lady was a lot of things. But it also was not a lot of things. It was not art about art, it was not about art world digressions and it was not about art theory suppositions. You couldn’t sell it. Nobody bought it then, flipped it to a dealer and it didn’t end up in the possession of the right people. There were murals then that fulfill agendas now and there are murals now that purport to have the authenticity of the past. And that is all good, and that is all important, and that is all worthy of discussion and exhibition. But if Kent Twitchell is not included in anything purporting to summarize Southern California in the 1970s, your survey is without a masterpiece, it is a corpse without a pulse, with no moon to rise and shift the tides your way, with no woman watching out for you every day. So many qualified curators were here during that time and the Getty has handed the public the vision of a bunch of librarians who dream of Manhattan while they deny us the truth about our own paradise.
-Mat Gleason

LINK TO MY VIDEO (audio only in one part) of a 2009 Kent Twitchell survey show:

Brick and Mortar Punk Rock Memory Lane

Sun, 04 Dec 2011 07:10:54 GMT

If you are going to have an art show on the subject of punk rock, an industrial warehouse in Downtown Los Angeles is a load better than a westside art gallery to make the thing work. And a poster for a Bad Brains gig stripped from a New York Subway Wall and framed for the show greeting you at the door is a stamp of authenticity that the "smart set" of art world thinkers would never think of.

Curating a melange of "art names" as formally diverse as Raymond Pettibon, Thaddeus Strode and Shark Toof with his own work, recent selections from a decidedly fine art photography series of gas stations by Nicole Panter (to explain her credentials here would be to blur the line between initiate and tourist too much) and the "back in the day" photography of Monk Rock, the legendary roadie for Social Distortion, Shanty ditched the art world pretense and allowed the objects to deliver a layered encounter with memory and iconography, literally curating an actual distortion of the social.

Shanty's own wry paintings recreate punk rock fliers, a hallmark of "having been there", as stenciled pop art, updating and degrading the genre to ensure that punk's impulsive contrarian exorcism of purity marches on.

Ever the punk rock nerd I had to strut my encyclopedic recollection of the subculture by pointing out that one of the flyers he had reconstituted as a painting was for a Misfits gig that never took place, as the scheduled venue, Mendiola's Ballroom, had cancelled all shows with punk bands because of a November 1982 riot. Buck knew quite a bit about those events and there is nothing sappier than two guys with headlights near the half-century mark cruising down memory lane. Fortunately, Buck's daughter came by to show off her cocktail waitress attire:

Ah, ya gotta love the costumes. Monk and Shanty have aged well, so far avoiding the inevitable mortal lottery that has already taken two original members of S.D. and by the point the opening was filling up, the DeeJay was balancing Brian Eno with the Buzzcocks and the paranoia that there might be people with very old scores to settle started to vibrate. Or perhaps in my old age it was just the low blood sugar calling. It was a great trip to see an attitude, an aesthetic and an era that just won't die all composed as art wihtout capitualting "art world". The whole affair rhetorically looked Johnny Thunders in the long-gone eyes and debunked his claim that you can't put your arms around a memory - you can indeed, especially if you have $500 for one Shanty's punk-pop anti-masterpieces.

The abandoned industrial gutters of east Downtown are almost unchanged from the pre-Madonna days and nights of beer and cocaine fueled rages into nihilistic oblivion. The drug of choice for lots of us now just happens to be red bull or what Starbux is pushing. But the night is young and seeing Punk resonate yet again with unselfconscious strength inspires me to take the girlfriend out to a nice dinner of all things - how's that nihilistic urge to scream in an embrace of the ugly? Or it may just have been the damn low blood sugar. Church and State seats us at the bar and sells me a $13 cocktail for her.

I don't know if I could have kicked the old sauce all those years ago if my world had been as elegant and seductive and (based on her description of the exquisite beverage) beautiful as the bars today. Admiral Ackbar murmurs "It's a trap" and Garland Jeffries snarls something about running "Wild in the Streets" and we dine but don't dash as we are not tickled with temptation to taunt the police state Jello predicted thirty years ago.

Walking to the car we pass the old LACE building, the intersection of the punk scene's most aesthetic and the art world's least stuffy. You'd call it an edge at one point, but LACE turned into the great art world swindle on its way to Hollywood and the shell of a building does not even house ghosts who can't get a Getty grant anymore. At the brick and asphalt enclave of Buck Shanty's one night of punk art, emptiness is the last worry, as the genuine is still the enemy of the self-inflated and a fossil doesn't need a grant or even permission to be a work of art, on the wall or looking in the mirror, satisfied.

New Art Review Policy

Wed, 16 Nov 2011 22:50:59 GMT

New Art Review Policy: If I cannot take pictures, I cannot write about it. You want me to put my own words to the art, I need to record and publish my own images. I will not fill out a form. I will not ask for special treatment. I will not accept your official images (unless they are demonstrably superior to my own). I will ask for permission and if it isn't granted, that is cool, It is like giving me the day off, there is one less artist and one less gallery to write about.

Art World Class Warfare

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 18:51:42 GMT

If you are a reader of political blogs, the following is called a "Fisking". If you are a reader of sports blogs, you may know what the term "The Fire Joe Morgan Treatment" means. When one encounters a wholly offensive opinion piece in a field that inspires your personal passion, it is time to be "ruthlessly factual" in debunking it.

In the climate of nationally assessing the vulgar core of the haves and their poisoning of the have-nots, writer Bettina Korek took to the pages of Forbes Magazine with a glibly titled genuflection at wealth and its stranglehold on the pulse of art: NOT A BILLIONAIRE? YOU CAN STILL BE AN ART COLLECTOR. It begins with a genuflection to the monied art world's mecca: The Auction houses...

The auction season got off to an uneven start last week but proved that high-end art remains a hot investment. While the Impressionist and Modern sales at Sotheby's "soared," bringing in$200 million, Christie's took in an "anemic" $141 million. One anonymous private collector snapped up one single landscape painting by Gustav Klimt for $40.4 million.

Are you rubes excited yet? If you didn't get enough of Robin Leach and Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, come on over to the art world.

Most of us do not have the resources--or clout--of billionaire collectors Edye and Eli Broad, Norman and Irma Braman or Doris Fisher.

The use of the word clout is a reminder that for all of the positions of "trusteeship" that steward art and institutions at the highest levels of those who subscribe to magazines like Forbes, the raw power called clout is really what all those pretty pictures are in service of.

But starting an art collection is more affordable than you think and you can take a cue from them and become an arts patron at the same time... "Without supporting a museum or an arts organization, the collector is just a tourist in the art world gathering souvenirs. With the support comes citizenship."

Well pass the plate, this isn't an art scene you are at, it is a church service. Dig a little deeper and you might buy your art salvation!

Now Ms Korek hits her stride in an evangelical wail for the monied to find personal salvation not only in the art world, but within the clutches of the money-hungry art world middlemen who are neither creative forces nor passive caretakers...

You should first and foremost love the art that you are buying, because the market is fickle. With some time and good advice, you can learn about art and collect based on art's historical significance. Traveling to art fairs and exhibitions gives you the opportunity to see what other collectors are buying and mass buying affects value. The most important thing is to take an informed approach.

Nothing like mixed messages: You basically have a choice - you can buy the art you like and get laughed at or buy the art everyone else is buying at al the places they go to buy that art. Either way you get caught holding the bag with worthless, overpriced junk.

The art world is a complicated and compelling social network. Your influence and prestige as a collector will be boiled down to purchasing power and your relationships with galleries, artists and institutions.

For you one-percenters who just are not getting sucked-up to enough at home or work, there is an endless supply of sycophants in the art world.

You can hone your intuitions about a young artist, or a work that may rise in value, into a true skill by educating yourself through constant looking and reading. Some resources to start with are Artforum, Art in America and ArtInfo. Be sure to keep track of the things that you like.

Here is a funny dichotomy. If your sole trait is that you have money, you can get all the education you need on the cheap by reading the tripe and puffery that passes for art writing in ArtForum, Art in America and ArtInfo. But if you do not have money, your education in the arts will cost you a hundred grand of student loan debt and three years in those tinkertot kilns of pretentiousness called the MFA diploma mill.

Familiarize yourself with the market. Browse auction catalogues... This is a great way to become more familiar with market values. Keep in mind that auction prices are public record.

If you are reading Forbes you know what "Market Values" is supposed to mean. When Al-Qaeda or Iran bomb the Saudi oil fields, the market value of your Texas oil stock go up. When solar power gets made available to the public, the market value of all that goop under the dirt disappears. Well the art market is not like that at all...

The art market is like an antique store. Imagine the scene... Oh yeah, this beautiful old thing might be the only one of these from back then that is in good condition and available now, that makes it important and the object of desire - you better grab it now. If we have three of them here the next time you visit this tourist trap and you raise your voice, I will give you all three for the price of one.

And those public records are SO public that the name of the seller and buyer are regularly hidden - even when the seller is the buyer in the name of elevating "the market" for his or her holdings.

Look in the right places. The chances of finding a good artist increase when you are looking at a good gallery. Look at gallery websites--it's easy to kill time at your desk browsing through sites of galleries that participate in top fairs like Art Basel and Art Basel Miami Beach, Frieze...

Heaven forbid you dare get adventurous in the conformityville known as the art world. If you ask Bettina where to shop for the holidays and she gives you the same advice, it would translate as: Buy Calvin Klein and shop at the Gap.

Becoming a collector is a process, and one of the best ways to expedite the process is to become a patron at the same time. You want the privilege of knowing curators, and learning what work they are looking at. It's important to be generous and support art for art's sake; it will give you information and access.

The privilege of knowing curators? Do these curators get to go to the Sistine Chapel and vote for the next pope? Do they take your Sunday Service donations with them to Rome or spread it among the poor?

Join an innovative nonprofit space or museum at a higher level ($1,000+). Be as generous as you can afford to be. It's not hard to identify these places... Research these groups a bit to see what piques your interest.

Unstated here is that many of the biggest collectors have given up this flushing down the toilet of their money in the form of donations to non-profits. The new art world power play is to buy the art you like and open your own museum run by your own non-profit. But going it on your own defunds the middlemen and women of the art world, aka, Bettina's clients.

The higher your capacity to give, the more opportunities there are to interact with curators and other patrons. Members of LACMA's annual Collector's Committee weekend pool millions and vote on proposed acquisitions from museum curators. The ticket price ($15,000 and up) includes a private dinner Friday night at a collector's home with specially designed menus and wine pairings.

So when you go to the museum and see the placard about the picture and it says it was acquired by some museum collector's council, now you understand the banal nerdiness of their existences. Would you rather have art selected by people so boring they pay fifteen grand to go to each others' houses? It is safe to wonder aloud now whether the art world functions as a cult at it higher levels.

LACMA director Michael Govan once called Collector's Committee "the 'American Idol' of the museum world" and the curatorial presentations are an invaluable way to understand how experts make their decisions.

Just to be clear: the people with the money are not the experts. The people who watch American Idol are the experts. I can't humiliate this observation of the writer's anymore than her debasing prose itself.

International Committees are another great way to educate oneself, and to travel with insider status... an "important way to bring an international group of collectors and patrons together, to connect with the museum and each other, while sharing personal insights and specific knowledge."

You don't have insider status if you let the museum herd you around in a reverse freakshow tour of preselected galleries sanitized of anything but the international style of monied objects and installations. But has groupthink ever sounded sexier or more stylish?

Independent non-profit spaces often have opportunities to support artist's projects or exhibition with gifts ranging from $1,000-$15,000. LAXART, a nonprofit arts space in Culver City that is working with the Hammer Museum and Getty Research Institute on major projects with emerging artists, organizes intimate gatherings with artists in the homes of collectors for its Curator's Council...

I count three middlemen, one council and an unnamed number of collectors hosting parties in their houses (don't worry, the white wine art world nerd central would never stoop to anything as exciting as drugs or wifeswapping at these punch and cookie affairs) that are getting in between the artist and the donor here. Welcome to the art world. The pocket that is picked feeds four times as many art administrators as it does artists!

Looking at art graduate school exhibitions is a great way to buy early, but keep in mind that you're taking a calculated risk.

Notice how it is never a risk when you give money to institutions, no matter how terrible their programming is and without any discussion of their fiscal responsibility? But the moment you might dare just give money to an artist, albeit one in grad school, all of a sudden it is a calculated risk. So to give the museum fifteen grand you get an entree and wine pairing, but to give a grad school artist three grand for two paintings that you find compelling... woah there cowboy, you are taking a huge risk that you might actually own art that you enjoy. Wow, such an edgy existence... you have been warned.

Develop a relationship with an independent art advisor... asking galleries who they recommend, who they trust and believe in, and who really knows what he or she is doing... it's important to ask a potential advisor how they will help you become involved in the art conversation by getting more involved philanthropically... get the facts straight about the fee structure before you start. Some advisors take commission on purchases, others work on a retainer, and some require both.

Get your facts straight... these hucksteresque soothsayers, oops I mean professional advisors can play you any one of 85 ways, so take this advice and be wary of the three or four most obvious ones to make it easier on the in-crowd to squeeze as much dough out of you as they steer you toward buying art you don't like form art dealers that they love.

Build a library. Art books are a fantastic way to jump-start your collecting... Books in themselves can be art objects.

In other news, Forbes readers, the sky is blue and the dollar is green.

Get advice from other collectors you admire... Editions are a great way to get your feet wet, and can be a great area to focus on. New sites... are also a great place to look.

If you are rich, you know there is nothing you hate more than letting some other rich windbag blab on and on about something. Precisely zero rich Forbes readers will take this advice and that is a good thing.

Over time, developing an interest in art can connect you with an incredible social and intellectual community. Collecting art is best approached as a life-enriching adventure and one that can build a new asset for your future along the way.

If by "social" you mean climbing backstabbers and "intellectual" you mean degreed narcissists, you nailed it. Of course, no mention of smoking pot with artists, the only true advantage to spending time in an art world you do not understand. I suppose that since Bettina that since she spends all of her time in the art world, Bettina doesn't know any artists.

orphaned paragraph of meaning

Wed, 31 Aug 2011 07:12:30 GMT

I just cut this out of a 5,000 word essay but wanted it to be somewhere in the universe, so here it is...

In the struggle to find a creative process that satisfies an artist, every creative person refines their way of thinking and develops their technique to reveal this pattern of thought as it becomes more honed. The individual creator visually articulates what it is that so deservedly ends up on canvas and the point is approached where theory can only take the artist so far. There has to be the struggle in the studio to produce the step beyond theory, to deliver a new world.

After Nine Nights in Las Vegas

Tue, 19 Jul 2011 20:15:26 GMT

I can truly say that I had a vacation.

Ten Minute TEL-ART-PHONE video

Fri, 03 Jun 2011 09:17:08 GMT

Here you have a nice film covering my art show and the opening

pretty cool...

In Memory of Gallerist Hermann Bachofner

Wed, 01 Jun 2011 03:18:02 GMT

Word came this afternoon that gallerist Hermann Bachofner died on Monday, May 30. I worked with Hermann Bachofner a few times over the years at the Ruth Bachofner Gallery, curating two shows there more than a decade ago. He brought to America his native Swiss love of precision that translated well to the path he chose. He and his wife Ruth ran their space for more than a quarter century, maintaining a rigorous program favoring an aesthetic of precision, simplicity and serious visual pleasure.

When we were installing my show Abject Edge in the gallery in the late 90s, Hermann was not content with a television broadcasting an artwork by Carl Pope to be on the floor. He went on a mission to the store and bought a corner shelf to elevate the big screen a foot off the ground. It looked fantastic and spoke to his keen sense of what looked good as well as what worked. And I learned something. Hermann told me he had never had a television in the gallery ever, had never shown a video piece. It made me understand, deeply, that people who devote their lives to exhibiting certain types of art understand how things should look and this devotion manifests in not settling, in buying a shelf, in re-hanging an artwork a quarter inch lower or higher to get it just right.

Hermann was an engineer early in life and he was ever the curiosity-seeking puzzle solver. When announcement postcards for the show started being returned in droves, I suspected an antiquated mailing list. But Hermann went over the pile of returns and deduced that some of the post office meters were actually reading the gallery's address on the card instead of the address on the mailing label. He started methodically covering the gallery address on the card with blank white address labels. When I mentioned that there were thousands of postcards possible coming back, he dismissed my concerns. He explained that the postal machines were likely all calibrated just differently enough that the postcards we were getting were all we would be getting. He re-sent the hundred or so cards and a few days later at the gallery he held a card up and playfully told me, "I was wrong, one more came to us that should have gone somewhere else. We're fortunate I am not working on missile guidance systems." That really sums him up as best I can - devoted to problem-solving, calmly jumping on a project as it emerged as a priority, and making a self-deprecating joke about the great results he produced not being perfect.

The calm that enveloped him was contagious and he was a reassuring presence, relaxed and methodical in innumerable tense situations and circumstances. Every hanging of an art show has a few disasters awaiting, but the show always went on at the Ruth Bachofner Gallery, and usually in delightful tranquility because Hermann Bachofner, a great man, was always there to help and delighted in doing so, no matter how minute the detail or dull the chore seemed.

Saturday Summer Studio Tours

Mon, 30 May 2011 09:12:38 GMT

Where are the interesting artists? In their studios of course!

Art commentator Mat Gleason knows the inner workings of the Los Angeles art scene as well as anyone. He wants to take you on a voyage of discovery into the place where it most happens: The artist’s studio. Whether you are an art collector, investor, enthusiast or aspiring artist yourself, observing an artist in their environment will expand your understanding of contemporary art. Along the way Mat will be discussing art and art concepts in an entertaining and educational dialogue.

Come along on a tour of the LA region’s most interesting artist studios, meet the artists, see what they are working on and where they are taking the LA art scene. Each of our Saturday outings will feature visits to three artist studios. Each visit will be approximately 40–50 minutes.

You will be meeting artists at different points in their careers:

•Established artists with international reputations

•Emerging art stars

•Cutting edge experimenters

With three visits over three Saturdays, the nine artist studios you see will give you a deeper perspective into the creative process driving the Los Angeles art scene. You will see lots of intriguing art and meet the players that are shaping the art world.

Saturday Sessions are:

June 11, 18 and 25

OR

July 9, 23 and 30

June session (3 Saturdays) is $145

July session (3 Saturdays) is $145

Enrollment is limited and spaces can only be guaranteed by registering ahead of the start date. Email Mat with your contact information (matg64@gmail.com) and he will call you to accept CC payment over the phone or arrange other payment options.

Each session will begin at 11 AM and run thru approximately 3 PM. Each session will finish with lunch (bring your own) and discussion about contemporary art in the context of that day’s studio visits. You must have your own transportation to various points around metropolitan Los Angeles. Each Saturday will group artists based on proximity of their geographic location for your convenience. Guests/companions must be enrolled. No pets please. 18 and over please.

TEL-ART-PHONE

Fri, 27 May 2011 08:48:55 GMT

AN ART THING YOU MIGHT LIKE:

Beacon Arts Presents

TEL-ART-PHONE

An 80+ Artist Exhibition Based on the Classic Game “Telephone”

Curated by Mat Gleason

Saturday, May 28 - Sunday, July 3, 2011

Opening Reception: Saturday May 28th, 6pm - 10pm

Beacon Arts continues its Critics-as-Curators series with TEL-ART-PHONE, a unique art exhibition that investigates the creative process by mimicking the classic children’s game of “Telephone,” opening Saturday, May 28, 2011. Curated by Coagula Founder Mat Gleason, TEL-ART-PHONE, kicks-off with an opening reception featuring live painting and catering by Literati Bar & Grill from 6:00 to 10:00pm on May 28. Among the 80+ artists contributing works to the show are Ray Beldner, Tim Biskup, Coop, Sean Duffy, Carlee Fernandez, Gronk, George Herms, Rosalind McGary, Dave Naz, and Robert Williams. The exhibit runs for five weeks closing on Sunday, July 3, 2011 with a Critics-as-Curators panel discussion and brunch reception from 1:00 to 4:00pm. Artist panel discussions will also be held on three consecutive Sundays: June 12, June 19, and June 26 at 2:00pm. Beacon Arts is located at 808 N. La Brea Ave., Inglewood, CA 90302.

TEL-ART-PHONE Participating Artists - Lisa Adams, Suzanne Adelman, Anthony Ausgang, Vicki Barkley, Ray Beldner, Sharon Bell, Maura Bendett, Lynne Berman, Lili Bernard, Tim Biskup, Ilana Bloch, Justin Bower, Mark Brandvik, Bill Brewer, Wini Brewer, Sky Bruchard, Rude Calderon, Gary Callahan, Lavialle Campbell, Coop, Alex Couwenberg, Leach C. Dixon, Sean Duffy, Martin Durazo, Val Echavarria, Carol Es, Ruben Esparza, Roni Feldman, Carlee Fernandez, Barbara Fritsche, Yolanda Gonzalez, Gronk, Doug Harvey, George Herms, Anneke Hiatt, Iva Hladis, Virginia Katz, Barbara Kerwin, Richard Kessler, Mark Kostabi, Catherine Leach, Laura London, Vito LoRusso, Stevie Love, Leora Lutz, Michael Maas, Kara Maria, Gregory Martin, Rosalind McGary, Antonio Mendoza, Steph Mercado, Rick Monzon, Andy Moses, Amitis Motevalli, Dave Naz, Jonas Olsson, Joe O’Neill, Claudia Parducci, Christopher Pate, Josh Petker, Pierre Picot, William Rabe, Stu Rappeport, Michael Salerno, Leigh Salgado, Alex Schaefer, Joan Sebastian, Veronica Soto, Laurie Steelink, Gina Stepaniuk, Audrey Stommes, Mike Street, Sharon Suhovy, Adam Teraoka, Lava Thomas, Juan Thorp, Mike Vegas, Robert Williams, Suzanne Williams, Lisa Worksman, and Tim Youd.

Bob Dylan Birthday Essay

Tue, 24 May 2011 07:14:32 GMT

Bob Dylan turns 70 years old today. I wonder if I would be alive (figuratively and literally) without this man, this artist.

It is pretty easy to write about stuff that is immediate and less so the stuff that runs deep. The first thing about the man is that he is a poet who found a method to deliver that poetry.

If you think that art is hard, try poetry. If you sell ten chapbooks you are in the top two percent of commercial successes as a poet. But poetry is powerful and the species constantly invents ways to refine and deliver it.

And so in delivering with music he pierced the brain and heart. Almost any musician, any popular album, there will be that one or two lines that elevate your relationship with the world. With Dylan it is almost every line. In conversation with a friend and noted Dylanologist Bryan Styble, it came up that some people might be looking too hard for greatness at every turn. Bob had to turn a phrase here and there just to rhyme and get on with the song.

I have learned that over time, some Dylan verses grow in magnitude as others recede, some songs or albums become the soundtrack to my days. One day an old song might yield a line that makes up your mind as you know it should have gone and other days it is some chorus to a song that defines exactly what you are going through. It is not therapy, it is revelation.

The words recited would be bland and Bob's music as instrumental would be wan, but the two together change the way you think, feel and live. Art gains permanence when it has meaning to the audience, and when that meaning changes over time the audience lasts for generations.

I’ve noticed that I listen most to Bob in the midst of transitions in life. Good ones, bad ones, tense and lonely or orgiastic with a flurry of activity, his moderate beat defines change as he himself changed a step ahead of us all. The power of poetry to transform any one of us at any given time is the naked potency of art and the creative process. That one man could deliver time and time again simple descriptions of what you might be going through, had felt or would know one day, all in 4/4 time and usually in the key of D... it is what we call art ...because there really is not a word for it.

Through art I understood it all as I understand it today ...and this emotional comprehension was most accelerated and cultivated by the poet Bob Dylan born Robert Allan Zimmerman this day in 1941.

Michael Salerno

Tue, 24 May 2011 06:17:04 GMT

Roland Reiss also makes an appearance, providing commentary on LA's best abstract pioneer.

Video of me talking about art for ten minutes...

Fri, 13 May 2011 22:44:48 GMT

Here is ten minutes of me talking about the topic of greatness. All questions were asked spontaneously with no time to think about an answer. I'm supposed to get the finished painting in this video...

three hats

Wed, 30 Mar 2011 06:24:20 GMT

I wear three hats

Today I wore them all.

A friend called urgently needing money and asking for help in selling some art. I put on my art critic hat.

A friend called with an interesting story of the powers that be in a situation regarding my favorite baseball team. I put on my sportswriter hat.

A friend had a horrible incident occur and wanted an astrology reading. I put on my astrologer hat.

Then I took Leigh out to a nice dinner. I wore my "El Cortez Casino" hat and we talked about our July Vegas vacation plans.

I also packed up 15 reels of 8 mm home movies from the 1970s and sent them to a DVD-producing place. Eager to see them, hat or no hat.

Finish This Essay

Wed, 23 Mar 2011 06:08:46 GMT

Here is an essay that I started writing and then lost comeplte interest in ... have at it, write your finish of it, post it in your blog and send me a link. Winner get a free published critique of their art (via jpeg) by me if that means anything if not, winner gets proclaimed winner.

Something stinks in the art world. When a critic writes a review, the artist benefits (good or bad, he or she matters enough to have garnered press), the gallery benefits (they are seen as part of the dialogue) and the art world benefits by having a validation mechanism perform its duty.

But what is in it for the critic? Chump change, frankly, is all I ever made. A pretty obvious secret you will see is that lots of longtime art critics make lots of money in other fields, be it teaching, inheritances or shacking up with wealthy ex-pats. Email, lots of email press releases, hundreds of emails a week once you are known as an art writer, reporter, critic or blogger. Mail, lots of mail, press releases, postcards, books. I use the blank backs of unopened white press release envelopes to scribble driving directions on – easy to grab hold and read in the car. Never any checks, or never often enough.

If there were a moratorium on artists writing traditional reviews,

weird

Wed, 12 Jan 2011 10:17:32 GMT

I would ordinarily just post this in FaceBook but here is a bone thrown to LiveJournal:

The two most financially successful radio voices in history, Rush LImbaugh and Howard Stern, were born on this day in 1951 and 1954 respectively.