Gagosian – Frames of Reference

These Paintings Are Of Themselves

I am grateful to James Kalm for giving us a private view of this Brice Marden exhibition of new work in New York. I love it. I love these beautiful, shaky, trembling, late paintings. To look at them is to unravel them, to see how they were made, and witness the hand that painted them. These paintings are of themselves, but also of everything else. They’re calligraphies written with hand-held branches, they’re a web of tree-top canopies, they’re the mycorrhizal networks in the forest floor, they’re the internet cables that connect us and separate us, that tie us together and keep us apart, they’re the vessels that run through our bodies. They’re survivors of a world that is fast disappearing, they’re reminders of why we are here. Thank you Brice.

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These paintings are of themselves

Terre Verte

Eastern Moss is a nine panel painting by Brice Marden in nine variations of terre verte (green earth) pigment. It was the first painting we met when we visited his recent exhibition at Gagosian in London.

I kept putting the same colour on – the same colour, the same colour – but every time I put it on it was different. Each time it was this whole new light/colour experience. It was not a revelation, but a whole wonderful new experience… To me, it involves harnessing some of the powers of the earth. Harnessing and communicating. Continue reading “Terre Verte”

Metropolis II

This is a beautifully made short film about a kinetic sculpture by Chris Burden that took four years to build. It was filmed in his studio prior to being installed at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, where it opened last Saturday. It’s a wonderfully choreographed vision of modern city travel. Continue reading “Metropolis II”