Posts By matthew rose

(Picture) Postcard From Paris

After the crowds at the FIAC in Paris subside, the gathering at Paris Photo, held in the Carrousel du Louvre, creates a different kind of picture show.  Intimate and targeted to serious collectors of photography, only 89 galleries, and 13 publishers including book dealers and other image merchants appear fresh and pressed in the well-appointed marble basement of the world’s largest museum.

Letter From Paris: The FIAC – The Hunger, The Hype & The Hysteria

Perhaps the perfect metaphor for the contemporary art fair is the media-fattened story of the Balloon Boy (in the US), which swept across the airwaves on a gust of excitement only to be lanced by the truth.  It was for the money, after all, and the 10 year-old boy (Little Falcon) supposedly trapped in the Warhol-like silver balloon was safe on the ground busy in makeup getting ready for his star turn. It was, of course, a hoax. “They put on a very good show for us, and we bought it,” said local sheriff, Jim Alderden.

Gilbert and George on politics and Union Jacks

In 2007, Gilbert & George mounted a massive retrospective at the Tate Modern that included “Mullah.” The tremendous work (2.42 x 2.02m) from 1980, featured a stone-faced icon seemingly cast from the Magic Forest. Composed of photographs of cut planks of wood (knots for eyes, nose and mouth) and collaged together in Gilbert & George’s signature multi-panel digital print in black and white, the work seems prescient these days as “mullah” gains traction across the Internet following the violent crackdown on the post-election street demonstrations in Iran.

10 Questions For Peter Schuyff

10 Questions For Peter Schuyff, after a studio visit in Amsterdamn. Painting, Music and life in the land of the Dutch Masters.

John Cage’s Shoes–Robert Storr speaks in Paris

I think it was the 13th of August, 1992, that artist and neighbor Ray Johnson called me with the news that John Cage was dead. I know it was early in the morning, and not the day he died, the 12th, because when I went outside to get a coffee and a New York Times, Cage’s obit was fully formed, a solid page, a gray tombstone reserved only for those who have come to New York to change the world. Ray hung up and I assume spent the day dialing all sorts of people to tell them that John Cage ... More » »

Herman James : The Iceberg Cometh

I’m sorry to report that the end of the world will be broadcast on television. We will sit at home and watch as images are beamed into our living rooms, bedrooms, and banks of screens in sports bars. We’ll be eating popcorn, making love and getting drunk while trying to pick off someone from the opposite sex, chowing down burgers and quaffing watery drafts. All the while images will flash: Some oilwell aflame somewhere, some building imploding somewhere, thousands of pilgrims wiped out by a wall of water on some beach. We’ll watch and wait our turn.

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Assistant: Where are They now? Part 4

[This is part 4 of a multi-part article. To begin at the beginning, go to Part 1.] Post apprenticeship experiences If the master influences the young assistant, it is often via an aesthetic process, shared subject matter or an appetite for literature, science and art history, what Meyer called “alchemy.” Meyer’s first big break came in a one-man show of paintings and watercolors at New York’s ULAE. He sold a large painting to critic Barbara Rose. Things took off for the artist and he left Johns’ studio to found his own. [See note below]. He lives and works with his ... More » »

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Assistant:Pruitt-Early, part 3

[This is part 3 of a multi-part article. To begin at the beginning, go to Part 1.] Hatching plans Jack Early and Rob Pruitt met in their early 20s while studying art at the Corcoran School in Washington, D.C. The two quickly hatched plans to hit it big in the other capital – New York City. The moment they’d finished school, the young artists hustled over to Andy Warhol’s Factory. They thought they had the necessary irony and media savvy to seduce the wigged one and join up with the biggest show in New York. Unfortunately Andy only offered them ... More » »

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Assistant, part 2

[This is part 2 of a multi-part article. To begin at the beginning, go to Part 1.] Who are you? But few young artists get even this far – working for an established artist, let alone getting into a retrospective at a swank well-known gallery. Most become disgruntled at having to create or help produce the work for some artists with little time or energy for their own work. Or worse, they find their own fledgling careers overshadowed by the larger ones they are working to perfect. Paul H-O In 1986 Paul Hasegawa-Overacker (known as Paul H-O) was an aspiring ... More » »

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Assistant

When Roberta paid a visit to Matthew Rose in Paris one afternoon in November, she learned from the artist and writer that in the early 1990s when he was living in New York and working as a freelancer, he wrote a magazine article for Vogue on the lives of studio assistants to Jasper Johns, David Salle and Sherrie Levine.  Incredibly, the piece was never published despite the fact that the copy was ok’d for publication and the photos were taken. The story was squashed by the editor. Roberta told this interesting story to Libby, who, upon hearing it, said, “Tell ... More » »