This is a great little video from the Tate of british abstract painter Fiona Rae talking in her studio. It is always great to see how other artists work. It would be nice though if we could all have ginormous studios with 8 ft. palettes and 10 ft. rolling brush carts, instead of our tiny hovels in the shadows of “luxury artists lofts” that sell for $1 mil+ to the now unemployed hedge funders! Anyway, she has some really delicious things to say at about the 2:45 mark.

Video of the day.

Bill Viola, Reflecting Pool

Shahzia Sikander / Pathology of Suspension #10 / 2005 / Ink and gouache on prepared paper / 77.5 x 51.5 in. / Sikkema Jenkins & Co.

Shahzia Sikander / Dissonance to Detour / 2005 / STILL from digital animation / Sikkema Jenkins & Co.

Watch video here…

I am a contemporary artist who grew up in Pakistan but my professional life has been outside of Pakistan from age 22. Though the early part of my career as an artist was established primarily in New York, I have been working on projects around the world in the last several years. I find the terminology and the referencing of work in terms of an east and west paradigm, simplistic and dated. It robs the work of all nuances in meaning. In fact these days the world is small and one should really consider work in terms of some sort of global context of ideas. Work I believe should stand on its own, irrespective of geography. I address the work primarily through the lens of an idea and a related project and there is no place where I could not work.

Shahzia Sikander

Elise Ferguson / You Me / 2008 / pigmented plaster, aluminum, silver leaf / 18 x 24 inches / envoy gallery

Arnold Kemp / Climate / 2008 / watercolor, acrylic paint, flashe, mixed media on linen / 14 x 18 inches / envoy gallery

Aude du Pasquier Grall / Le Cycle Masculin N°7 / 2005-2008 / video installation; ed. 5 / envoy gallery

I happened upon this show in the Lower East Side a few weeks back, shortly after it opened. Small textured paintings in the front room sparkled and glittered. I slipped behind the curtain into a video exhibit projected on two walls. I’m usually not a big fan of video exhibitions, usually because it’s impossible to watch because people are afraid to walk fully into the room, clogging up the entrance, and I usually walk in at some point in the loop with no idea where it is coming from where it is going and for how long. I loose patience quickly. Anyway, this was fun because it wasn’t crowded, I could sit on the floor, and besides, the artist was there sitting in a chair, with her elbows on her knees, filming us watching the video, setting up this weird pomo redundancy observer/observed dynamic. I only wish I had done my little doggy yelp!

Envoy Gallery, 131 Chrystie St., through 7 June 2008

Painting Process/Process Painting, MoMA, Carroll Dunham, 1

Painting Process/Process Painting, MoMA, Carroll Dunham, 2