tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7052359276156655942024-03-12T17:51:55.982-07:00terrainjohn rosewallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16839803318926361233noreply@blogger.comBlogger33125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-705235927615665594.post-76653384967549278512018-03-24T14:11:00.000-07:002018-03-24T14:11:02.142-07:00human-not-quite-human<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In addition to my work as a visual artist, I also teach college-level
writing and have been doing so for more than thirty years. Every semester, in
one of my Freshman Composition courses, I show Spike Lee’s movie <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Do the Right Thing</i>. It’s the fulcrum on
which the semester balances, with writing assignments coming before and after
the showing, as both preparation for, and processing of, the ideas raised by
the film. Considering the widely publicized extra-judicial police killings of
the past few years, the film has become more relevant than ever to my students,
young people of color, almost all Black and Hispanic, residing, for the most
part, in South L.A., Compton, Carson, and other communities not all that
different from the Bedford-Stuyvesant circa 1989 that we see in the film. These
are areas where the police are a presence, but a presence of a certain kind. Of
the many digressions in the film—tangents from the plot line concerning Sal, Mookie,
Buggin’ Out, Radio Raheem, and photographs on the pizzeria’s wall-of-fame—one
in particular stands out as a paradigm of the relationship to power that some,
perhaps many, of my students live.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Until the final sequences of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Do the Right Thing</i>, the police are a presence mostly by virtue of
their absence. Not that we can’t find plenty of low-grade law-breaking going on.
Coconut, ML, and Sweet Dick Willie loiter openly on a street corner; the doomed
Radio Raheem is a walking noise violation; Da Mayor hires a ten-year-old boy to
buy him beer from the corner bodega; Mister Señor Love Daddy runs a bootleg
radio station through a picture window, hiding in plain sight. The police do
nothing about any of it. A squad car rolls down the street every now and then,
making its rounds, keeping its distance, letting it all unfold. At no point do
we get the feeling that the officers inside are contemplating action. No one’s
getting hurt, and it’s hotter than hell. Why get out of the car?</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">For the residents of the neighborhood, there’s even a kind
of freedom in this not-so-benign neglect. Drink beer on the street, make too
much noise: nothing is going to happen to you. But then a couple of kids open a
fire hydrant in order to get some relief from the heat. A middle-aged Italian
in a Cadillac convertible appears at the end of the block. In typical New York
fashion, full of threats and hand-waves and swearing, he negotiates safe
passage down the street. But at the very last minute, just as he seems to have
made it past danger, the kids douse him with the full force of the water,
flooding his classic Caddy, and run off.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Soaked, apoplectic, he stumbles out of the ruined car, and
the two officers are suddenly there. Our Italian wants an arrest; in fact, he
wants the kids “locked <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">under</i> the
fucking jail.” He wants, in other words, the full force of the law to come down
hard on the people who have wronged him. And why shouldn’t he expect it to do
so? He’s white and at least moderately wealthy, the cops are white, and the
perps are just a couple of Black kids from the ghetto, without any status or
identity. “What the fuck do I know their names?” he yells. “Moe and Joe, Moe
and Joe . . . Moe and Joe <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Black</i>,
how’s that?”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">But the cops are laughing, and our Italian is getting
angrier, because he’s beginning to realize where he is. One of the cops walks
off to take care of the open hydrant; the other closes his notepad. The police
can only make a suggestion: drive away before “these people” strip your car
down to nothing—in other words, before they commit another crime that the
enforcers of the law will do nothing to prevent or remedy. Underneath their
façade of civility and service, these cops must be laughing uproariously to
themselves. Enforce the law? Here? We don’t enforce the law <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">here</i>. Where in the fuck do you think you
are?</span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Of course, we know where he is: one of those zones of
abandonment that we find in cities all over the world, a place where the law
doesn’t apply because the structure of power has decided that the people who live
there aren’t worthy of it. The man of privilege in his Cadillac convertible no
doubt feels, after the great trauma of his encounter, that it’s he who has been
abandoned, who has been allowed to suffer the violations of “these people.” But
he’s only someone in the wrong place at the wrong time. It’s “these people” who
are hung out to dry, every day of their lives. The neglect of the police is an unmistakable
sign that one is not fully human in the eyes of the law. “These people” are something
less than people, human-not-quite-human, inhabiting a zone of indistinction
where the law no longer applies, but where power never ceases to reign—and to
reign with the potential of an excessive, terrifying, deadly force that can be
visited upon “these people” at any time and for any reason. This is power
raised to the level of an obscenity.</span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Everyone knows the famous final sequences of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Do the Right Thing</i>. Sal and Radio are
fighting on the sidewalk, and when the cops arrive—the same two cops, plus
others, all white—they kill Radio Raheem with a chokehold. The Italian in the
Cadillac has gotten his wish; one of “these people” will now forever be “under,”
in its most permanent manifestation: consigned to the grave. Obviously this
isn’t justice; it’s raw force, with a message behind it. Once again we are
faced with the paradigm of abandonment: abandonment <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">by</i> the law, abandonment <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">to</i>
power. The actions of the police are a way of saying: we don’t find you worthy
of the interest of the law, and we certainly don’t find you worthy of protection
by the law, but we will, if we feel like it, very simply kill you.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This zone of indistinction is what the Italian theorist
Giorgio Agemben means by the term “state of exception.” He defines the human subject
captured within this state <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">homo sacer</i>,
or sacred man—sacred not in the sense of being deserving of veneration (quite
the opposite), but in the sense of being set apart, excluded. Reaching back to
Roman law, Agemben cites the formulation of sacred man as he who may be killed
but not sacrificed: the guilty man, no longer worthy of the religious rites
that normally accompany an execution, can be killed by anyone, legally. Today,
of course, executions don’t rely on sacred rites; instead, we read the sentence.
The contemporary iteration of sacred man is he who is excluded, in practice, if
not in theory, from the law, but whom just about anyone can kill with impunity:
Radio Raheem, for instance, or Philando Castile, Eric Garner, Freddie Gray, Trayvon
Martin, or any of “these people” who have been, in effect, found guilty in
advance. All they do have is what Agemben terms “bare life,” the mere fact of
being alive and human—more or less human, that is; human-not-quite-human. For many
of us, bare life is the foundation for an empowered existence as citizens with
rights. But for those whom power has determined to exclude, bare life is just
about their only possession.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">An African-American young man sits in a broken-down pick-up
truck, one hand on a jury-rigged steering wheel, his hat pulled down over his
eyes. A burning tire is on the roof of the cab, the flames licking up past the
top edge of the image frame. Someone has smashed out the windshield and windows
and torn the handle clean off of the door. It doesn’t seem possible that this
vehicle will ever take him anywhere, but he, like my students, is holding on to
the wheel, determined to drive.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-HYv-68D6V94/Wra9d8eg5JI/AAAAAAAAAVc/qXQlmArUObEIwTNTl6dXpMac16V2SPKXgCLcBGAs/s1600/johnrosewall_Drive_2016.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="877" data-original-width="650" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-HYv-68D6V94/Wra9d8eg5JI/AAAAAAAAAVc/qXQlmArUObEIwTNTl6dXpMac16V2SPKXgCLcBGAs/s320/johnrosewall_Drive_2016.jpg" width="237" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">John Rosewall, <i>Drive</i>, 2016</span></div>
</div>
<!--EndFragment--><br />john rosewallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16839803318926361233noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-705235927615665594.post-31578897903225406712017-11-30T16:40:00.000-08:002017-11-30T16:40:32.852-08:00island of lost souls<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I’d always considered <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Island
of Lost Souls</i> a movie about human psychology—an allegory for the concept of
the beast within. The way in which Dr. Moreau raises his animal subjects toward
the human level constitutes not only an acceleration of evolution, as he claims.
It also represents, analogically, a civilizing process occurring within the
psyche that reminds one of the late Freud, with Moreau as the superego
violently taming the id. By showing us Moreau’s failure and ultimate destruction,
the movie argues that we humans can never extinguish our animal nature. Just
when we think we have driven out the beast, “the stubborn animal flesh”
resurfaces, and it is back to the “house of pain” for more treatment. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Recently I have started to see in the film a second
allegory, one that addresses the psychology of power, specifically from the
perspective of the colonizer. Looked at this way, Moreau is once again a
civilizing influence, the colonial power from across the seas come to bestow
the wonders of the Western world upon hapless, undeserving natives—all the
better to exploit them, of course. The animals on which he experiments are like
the colonizer’s raw material: the human beings who in Western eyes are little
more than dogs, and only half as useful, until lifted up an evolutionary rung
or two. These wretched of the earth have no other purpose than to serve the
cause of modernity—in the movie, this means evolutionary science—and Moreau
rules them as a god, using violence on the one hand—the whip and the laboratory—and
a civilizing legal framework on the other. These forces of violence and law
unite in the well-known scene at the natives’ village when Moreau, standing on
the cliff above the circle of huts, cracks his whip and leads the famous recitation:
“What is the law?” “Not to walk on all fours. That is the law. Are we not men?”
“What is the law?” “Not to spill blood. That is the law.” It’s the tightrope
walk of colonial power, with Moreau performing the balancing act. The colonized
must forever be kept, in the words of Sartre, at “the level of a superior ape
in order to justify the colonist’s treatment of them.” Let them rise above or
sink below this level, and one can expect only trouble.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Of course trouble does come to Moreau, when the half-human
creatures that he has brought into being return violence for violence and kill
him in his laboratory. Where do his creations find the ethical justification to
break the bonds of the law and take revenge on their oppressor? For it is the
genius of the movie that they do not act in haste or irrationally. Far from
being the “superior apes” that the colonist’s mind must make of them, they
display in this moment a greater humanity than the civilized doctor could ever imagine
of them, and a greater sense of justice than he could ever aspire to himself. Having
internalized the law, having taken for granted its transcendence and universality,
they move on the compound only after a reasoned debate in which two points are
established with evidence: first, Moreau has broken his own law by commissioning
murder, the spilling of blood; second, the death of the murdered ship’s captain
shows that humans, and therefore Moreau, can die. With hypocrisy as the charge,
and the mortality of the god-like ruler established, the inhabitants of the
island unleash their fury in a manner which, though undoubtedly cruel, fits
neatly within the outlines of Biblical, eye-for-an-eye-style justice. They ignore
Moreau’s violent entreaties for calm, overrun his compound, break into his
surgical instruments, and lay him out on the vivisector’s table. </span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Orwell told us a long time ago what the figure of power most
deeply fears: being found out as something less than what he has always pretended
to be. The unmasked actor with a gun on his belt is impotent nevertheless. Power
is always in some manner a ruse.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Over the sixty-two years since the end of World War II, the
United States has fallen from cultural and economic colonizer of much of the
world’s population, to the status of a Moreau just before his demise: a
puffed-up actor on the edge of a cliff, trying desperately to hold onto our
diminishing status, wielding the instruments of war in a circus-sideshow of
force, preaching a law that the people of the earth know very well we neither
take seriously nor would ever apply to ourselves. The veneer is wearing thin,
and good riddance to it. Though Moreau never succumbs to the least pangs of
conscience, his assistant, Montgomery, finally does stand against the obscenity
of power and intervenes to save Moreau’s most civilized creation, Lota, from
another session in the house of pain. But one can’t help thinking that it’s too
late for Montgomery, this dutiful assistant of the Western project. It’s not
Moreau’s creatures who have lost their souls.</span></div>
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john rosewallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16839803318926361233noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-705235927615665594.post-74112446317746964692017-09-27T16:00:00.000-07:002017-09-27T16:00:18.125-07:00kiss me deadly<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I grew up, in the Sixties, hearing the oft-repeated argument
that our technology, in the form of the nuclear bomb, had developed faster than
our ability to deal with it. We could build the great whatsit with relative
ease, but we lacked the ethical framework or psychological maturity to keep
from destroying ourselves with our creation. I’ve not seen a better expression
of this thought than the Robert Aldrich movie <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Kiss Me Deadly</i>. In the film Mike Hammer, a low-life private
investigator whose forte is to exploit divorce cases by playing husband and
wife against each other, stumbles upon the great whatsit in the form of a
mysterious hinged box. When opened—only a crack, please!—the box emits a
blinding white light and the sound of a thousand voices wordlessly, furiously
roaring. Hammer isn’t smart enough to divine what the great whatsit is, but he
knows that everyone wants it, and he also knows, as a matter of instinct, that
a piece of something big is something big. So he chases the box across post-war
Los Angeles with the same slashing fury that his profession always demands from
him, leaving friend and foe bloodied, beaten, and even killed in his wake. The
FBI is one step behind until a half-friendly agent, having tracked Hammer down,
finds a burn mark on his arm. This agent has been shadowing Hammer through most
of the film, attempting to warn him off the case with hints and threats—things
that a smart investigator ought to understand, but Hammer is all muscle and
light on the brains—attempting, at bottom, to save Hammer from himself. Nothing
has worked, so it’s time to name names: “Los Alamos, Trinity, the Manhattan
Project . . .” In shock, Hammer slowly reaches into his jacket pocket. He hands
over the key to the locker where the box has been stored. “I didn’t know,” he mumbles,
barely able to eke out the words. “You didn’t know,” replies the agent. “Would
you have acted any differently if you had known?”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The rest of the movie is beside the point, for this question
is at the heart of its meaning. Would Hammer have acted any differently if he
had known that the box held the awesome power of the bomb? Could he have forced
himself to act differently? Could he have tamped down his instinctual drives
and taken the leap onto a higher ethical plane, all at once, over the course of
a day or week, in the face of potentially unimaginable riches, just because of
a little new knowledge? One doubts it, though in actuality, we count on it
happening every day of our lives. We are now led in this country by a man like
Hammer, a man who indulges as an open secret his every instinctual drive and
who evinces neither the ability nor desire to subordinate his id to the demands
of reason. Yet now he holds the key to the box, the box which is no longer the
metaphor in a film. Is it reasonable to believe that such a man can achieve
what Hammer finally did achieve, though admittedly too late: to realize that he
is over his head and must hand the key to someone else?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">But it would not be enough in any case. Another such a one
would come along again soon. Perhaps a time will come when men such as this are
denied the key in the first place, or when the key no longer finds any box to
open. One doubts it, though we count on it happening every day of our lives.</span><br />
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john rosewallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16839803318926361233noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-705235927615665594.post-3444323467299380982017-09-03T15:50:00.000-07:002017-09-05T16:19:45.208-07:00the lost cause<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The linchpin of my upcoming exhibit is a painting of two men
in business suits, shaking hands. Followers of this blog have seen this image
several times already. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-arFGEl9ZMtk/WZoj058RbfI/AAAAAAAAATo/vcHq_Jsw9AMDrL1MtT101oCz7l2gnvs4ACEwYBhgL/s1600/johnrosewall_Bargain_2017.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="650" data-original-width="974" height="213" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-arFGEl9ZMtk/WZoj058RbfI/AAAAAAAAATo/vcHq_Jsw9AMDrL1MtT101oCz7l2gnvs4ACEwYBhgL/s320/johnrosewall_Bargain_2017.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">John Rosewall, <i>Bargain</i>, 2017</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">My intention in the exhibit is to trace the effects of that
handshake: the many forms of violence, physical and otherwise, perpetrated
against women, people of color, LGBT individuals, the poor, and members of other
marginalized groups, violence that makes its appearance in the world as an
effect of those men coming together in a nefarious bargain. Though the individual
perpetrators of these acts of violence have names and faces, homes and families,
the power by which they act extends far beyond the individuals involved. The
title of the show, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Grip</i>, and the
anonymity of the figures in the paintings, allude to this twofold status of
violence. The victims in my paintings are, at one and the same time, victims of
a concrete fist at the end of an undeniably real arm, and victims of the
institutions th</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">at codify and perpetuate the abstract power that stands in the
shadows, providing energy, alibi, and ideological justification. The victims
are, to put things simply, held in the grip of Power. In the United States, and in much of the world, Power means white power--small "w," small "p"--that is, the power of wealthy white business and political elites to rape the world's people and resources in endless cycles of exploitation.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">But not every grip in the show is a violent one. Two of the
works use the motif of the grip in quite another sense. In one, a victim of
African descent is being rescued from a scene of violence. First responders—who
are, like the victim, of African descent—rush him from the scene by carrying
him in their arms; on the victim’s upper arm we see the firm grip of someone
who is helping to steady the man. Here the grip is ameliorative—perhaps, one
hopes, restorative—though the fate of the man is far from clear. In an utterly
gratuitous gesture of humanity, another hand reaches out to catch the blood
dripping slowly from the victim’s foot.</span></div>
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-2V5UCAltWQI/WZoj4kibEhI/AAAAAAAAATw/3i2fHx6syyUT17J4GshnssPkeusH6idewCEwYBhgL/s1600/johnrosewall_Recovery_2016.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="319" data-original-width="350" height="181" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-2V5UCAltWQI/WZoj4kibEhI/AAAAAAAAATw/3i2fHx6syyUT17J4GshnssPkeusH6idewCEwYBhgL/s200/johnrosewall_Recovery_2016.jpg" width="200" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">John Rosewall, <i>Recovery</i>, 2016</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In the second painting, a man in a surgical mask gathers
evidence in the aftermath of a massacre. He bends from the waist in order to
lift a tarp from the skeletal remains of a nameless victim; the viewer sees the
top of a skull beneath a bulge in the cloth. The examiner wears the white
gloves of a medical technician. One hand closes like a fist around a corner of
the tarp, while the other is decidedly more gentle:
thumb and forefinger do the work of lifting while the pinkie extends, incongruously
delicate, another note of grace in the midst of horror.</span></div>
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-xSuUXn4m-yc/WZoj3CsEc4I/AAAAAAAAATs/WW05amTKLcIOFsJjmn2hnrVI69Kq95pwQCEwYBhgL/s1600/johnrosewall_Evidence_2016.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1012" data-original-width="650" height="320" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-xSuUXn4m-yc/WZoj3CsEc4I/AAAAAAAAATs/WW05amTKLcIOFsJjmn2hnrVI69Kq95pwQCEwYBhgL/s320/johnrosewall_Evidence_2016.jpg" width="205" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">John Rosewall, <i>Evidence</i>, 2016</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">These latter two works express the impossible negation of the grip in that originating handshake. They show the awesome, implacable will of
those who reject a power that cannot be denied. It is futile to try and far too late. The bomb has gone off; the
victim is dead. In the words of Alain Badiou, “we are, at the level of
intellectual representation, still prisoners of the conviction that we cannot
do away with it, that this is the way of the world, and that no politics of
emancipation is possible.” In the language of Badiou’s fellow philosopher
Slavoj Zizek, these latter two paintings show us the dogged pursuit of a lost cause.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">But Zizek’s title is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">In
Defense of Lost Causes</i>, and one can’t forget the words of Samuel Beckett:
“Try again. Fail again. Fail better.” Perhaps it’s not the successes, but the better failures that sustain humanity. Going back to Zizek, this time from <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Year of Dreaming Dangerously</i>: “every
intervention is a jump into the unknown, where the result always thwarts our
expectations. All we can be certain of is that the existing system cannot
reproduce itself indefinitely. . . . We should fully accept this openness,
guiding ourselves on nothing more than ambiguous signs from the future.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I have no doubt that the paintings in </span><i style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Grip</i><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> are failures. I can only hope that’s their saving grace.</span></div>
john rosewallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16839803318926361233noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-705235927615665594.post-9694204649493771412017-08-14T12:46:00.000-07:002017-08-14T12:46:06.651-07:00charlottesville<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Charlottesville happened over the weekend, and one can
already foresee, as I write on this Monday morning, the week’s CNN obsessions: Trump’s
statements, and the fate of the murderer. Each of these, in its own peculiar
way, distracts from the underlying dynamics of the situation.</span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As I write on this Monday morning, Trump is being vilified
for his late and lukewarm condemnation of the white supremacists who marched
and killed. This is fair enough, but it is also beside the point. Whatever
Trump says, we know where he stands. After a lifetime of racist actions and
rhetoric, after a Presidential campaign of racist dog-whistling, after stocking
his cabinet and staff with racists and outright white supremacists, and after
absurd proposals like his election commission and an investigation into
supposed discrimination against whites, Trump has made himself the perfect
figurehead for, and enabler of, a resurgent white supremacist power structure.
He could reject David Duke to his face, on national television, and Duke would
understand that it was only for show.</span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As I write on this Monday morning, our racist Attorney
General is hinting that the murder of Heather Heyer may be prosecuted as domestic
terrorism. One can only hope that Sessions will feel pressured enough in the
weeks to come to follow through with this decision, against what are no doubt his
native prejudices. At the same time, there is a sense in which the decision is beside
the point once again. Had the marches occurred without physical violence—had
the white supremacists occupied campus and street with their Tiki torches, Nazi
salutes, assault rifles, and nothing more--would this not have been, nevertheless,
an act of terrorism? What is the purpose of torches and racist slogans except to
create terror? What has it ever been?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There is another problem with focusing on the murder as the
one and only terrorist act. People are irredeemably violent. There will always
be someone, on any side of an issue, willing to throw a punch, squeeze off a
shot, or drive a car into a crowd. Focusing on acts of violence can be
strangely de-politicizing. For every neo-Nazi willing to kill a Heather Heyer,
there is someone willing to shoot a police officer in Dallas. More importantly,
whenever one points to a James Alex Fields, or to neo-Nazi marchers, the more
quietly racist supporters of Trump are provided an avenue for evasion. “I’m not
a killer; I’m not marching with torches; I just want people on all sides to be
treated fairly, with equality and justice, including whites.” But of course
this is not what they want. If they did, they would not be supporting a racist
regime.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Finally, one has to beware of sloppy language. Slogans are
always reductive and must always be avoided. “Love conquers hate” is from one
perspective a meaningless platitude, from another, a misleading analysis. It
implies that one is guided by either one or the other emotion, when this is
clearly not the case in human affairs. The white supremacists are as clear
about what they love as what they hate. The problem is not their emotions, but
their ideology; the problem is not that they hate rather than love, but that
they love and hate the wrong things. As Zizek puts it: “Soldiers are not bad
per se—what is bad are soldiers inspired by <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">poets</i>,
mobilized by nationalist poetry.” The same principle holds for the other side. Everyone
knows what Guevara said about love, but he also wrote: “a people without hatred
cannot vanquish a brutal enemy.” Or as Nietzsche puts it: “I love the great
despisers.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Okay, that Nietzsche quote is taken out of context. But you
get the idea. Cut me a break. It’s only Monday morning.</span></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-hJQpJtDv67o/WZH83gB4fAI/AAAAAAAAATY/53gm1QbPSg8FXrDzkZWWYV1SrnICRnHSQCLcBGAs/s1600/johnrosewall_Bargain_2017.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="650" data-original-width="974" height="213" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-hJQpJtDv67o/WZH83gB4fAI/AAAAAAAAATY/53gm1QbPSg8FXrDzkZWWYV1SrnICRnHSQCLcBGAs/s320/johnrosewall_Bargain_2017.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">John Rosewall, <i>Bargain</i>, 2017</span></div>
john rosewallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16839803318926361233noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-705235927615665594.post-29381316324584321492017-08-02T15:34:00.000-07:002017-08-02T15:34:05.421-07:00touch<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Every painting in my upcoming exhibit, <i>Grip</i>, features a male hand curled into a grip of some kind. In one painting, two men engage in a simple handshake; in another, a drone pilot clutches a bright red joy stick; in a third, a man thrusts his fist into the hair of the woman he is assaulting.</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> "Touch" is one of the earliest of the images. </span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">When I made this painting, I was </span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">still working
out my approach to the series: the deep black backgrounds, the simplified
representational forms, the elimination of every extraneous detail—all of it was new, and the choices were mostly intuitive. In the
photograph on which I based the painting, the officer making the arrest is plainly visible, full figure, from the rear, an anonymous representative of the
law. Cropping out everything but his arm and hand was a simple decision based
on a desire to focus on the figure in the white tee-shirt, whom I saw, from the beginning, as
a victim of the criminal justice system. Later, when I settled on a title for
the show, I liked the idea that the touch in this painting could be seen as a variation on the
repeated motif of the grip.</span></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-m4ewl-geEkA/WXUtRlZdYXI/AAAAAAAAATE/i4GDWPdkcnA1qf_5BAzU8woZsW4Iam_5ACLcBGAs/s1600/johnrosewall_Touch_2016.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="750" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-m4ewl-geEkA/WXUtRlZdYXI/AAAAAAAAATE/i4GDWPdkcnA1qf_5BAzU8woZsW4Iam_5ACLcBGAs/s320/johnrosewall_Touch_2016.jpg" width="208" /></a></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">John Rosewall, <i>Touch</i>, 2016</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Of course I connected the image immediately to the phrase
“the long arm of the law.” It was a way of thinking through the relationship of
the concrete individual officer to the abstraction of the carceral state. Without quite
understanding it yet, I was wrestling with a problem that Slavoj Zizek
describes in his book <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Year of
Dreaming Dangerously</i>: how to represent in art “the totality of contemporary
capitalism.” This question arises during a discussion of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Wire</i>, which series-creator David Simon describes as “a Greek
tragedy in which the postmodern institutions are the Olympian forces.” The
“totality” of “institutions” describes exactly what I’m trying to represent
with the motif of the grip. It also describes why I eliminate virtually all
identifying features of the people in my work. The paintings are not about the
conflict between individuals, but rather, about how individuals are caught in
the violent grip of contemporary institutions, whether that means capital, patriarchy, the
militaristic state, or the prison-industrial complex.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The officer in the painting, from the evidence of the hand, is too small to possess any real physical mastery over the much larger detainee. But of course power
doesn’t reside in the officer himself, much less his disembodied arm or the hand that touches the body. Power resides in the institution standing
invisibly in the background, the anonymous totality that endows that puny hand with its
Olympian weight. A fist can tighten around a lock of hair, fingers can crush a child's neck, but sometimes a touch is the firmest grip of all.</span><!--EndFragment-->
john rosewallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16839803318926361233noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-705235927615665594.post-4422461676570400972017-07-19T13:46:00.000-07:002017-07-19T13:46:14.390-07:00obedience<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">She was being beaten on the street by her husband, in the
middle of the day, in plain sight of passersby, because she had refused to obey
him. The very image of patriarchy: a man with no reservations about beating his
wife in full view of anyone, including the law; a
woman reduced to the status of a possession and displayed as such to the world.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">As usual I cropped close, eliminating elements denoting place, removing the figures to a de-contextualized, black space. I made an adjustment to the angle of the woman’s arm. Neither figure would be identifiable, and the man would be represented, for the most part, by an arm of his own, a blocky, rigid, explosive arm, and by a fist thrust into the woman's hair: his instrument of power, the pure symbol of Power. Her pants
were black; there’s a lot of black in my work. I thought: those are harem pants.
Purple.</span><br />
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-8i24_IFe7-U/WSCEIKhYVeI/AAAAAAAAARY/0SDXo1vHCY01PAQuakxjVNXDGRYfbp48QCLcB/s1600/johnrosewall_Obedience.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-8i24_IFe7-U/WSCEIKhYVeI/AAAAAAAAARY/0SDXo1vHCY01PAQuakxjVNXDGRYfbp48QCLcB/s320/johnrosewall_Obedience.jpg" width="219" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">John Rosewall, <i>Obedience</i>, 2016</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">And still, that pose. Where had I seen that pose before? Legs toward
the viewer, not widely spread but not closed either. Arm, in this case, one
arm, thrown behind her head. And then I remembered.</span></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3T9J1Z1mXrY/WSCEFaWHBpI/AAAAAAAAARU/rhrYtOPBQvUTPJjb_O8TOQu-kSFsR76FQCEw/s1600/257%2BOdalisque%2B1926.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="241" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3T9J1Z1mXrY/WSCEFaWHBpI/AAAAAAAAARU/rhrYtOPBQvUTPJjb_O8TOQu-kSFsR76FQCEw/s320/257%2BOdalisque%2B1926.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Henri Matisse, <i>Odalisque</i>, 1926</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">A Google search of "odalisque" calls up many pages of similar images. This icon of exotic sexual allure hides the system of slavery on which it depends. The voluptuousness of the setting mirrors that of the woman herself, and both are ruses hiding the Real: the horrible vacuum of a life reduced to servitude and the fist that is the instrument, real and symbolic, of Patriarchal Power.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-o9JU_TbBLZc/WSS3qAM4wyI/AAAAAAAAASI/cx-H3zg_sn0RHFJCMbaWA3hwtxFjkwrSACLcB/s1600/Obedience%2BDetail.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-o9JU_TbBLZc/WSS3qAM4wyI/AAAAAAAAASI/cx-H3zg_sn0RHFJCMbaWA3hwtxFjkwrSACLcB/s200/Obedience%2BDetail.jpg" width="186" /></a><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-uWUwdkuGLw8/WSS33Jz9wnI/AAAAAAAAASU/lNCJjVKI9dUdaM9m4tCqcSbCUrFtHXBbwCLcB/s1600/Bargain%2BDetail.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="146" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-uWUwdkuGLw8/WSS33Jz9wnI/AAAAAAAAASU/lNCJjVKI9dUdaM9m4tCqcSbCUrFtHXBbwCLcB/s200/Bargain%2BDetail.jpg" width="200" /></a></span></div>
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-U1JQ8sYjXAo/WSS3rVdJ53I/AAAAAAAAASM/jouDNpUvKv891x6_wVdEeqxFhGen-nqfwCLcB/s1600/Reach%2BDetail.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-U1JQ8sYjXAo/WSS3rVdJ53I/AAAAAAAAASM/jouDNpUvKv891x6_wVdEeqxFhGen-nqfwCLcB/s200/Reach%2BDetail.jpg" width="159" /></span></a></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Clockwise from upper left, all by John Rosewall: <i>Obedience</i> (detail), 2016; <i>Bargain</i> (detail), 2017; <i>Reach</i> (detail), 2017</span><br />
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john rosewallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16839803318926361233noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-705235927615665594.post-66658660062273001932017-06-20T10:38:00.000-07:002017-06-20T10:38:27.456-07:00reach<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">1</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">As a child I used to cut up refrigerator boxes with a pocket
knife in order to construct a nearly life-sized replica of the cockpit of a military fighter jet. To complete the effect I would only need an abandoned chair, instrument
dials drawn in black Magic Marker, and an old broomstick between my legs for a joystick. One leans in
the direction of the turn and mumbles technical-sounding gibberish into an
imaginary headset. It was the mythology of speed and the seduction of
technology that made me want to fly those planes, not the desire to serve my
country or the more base desire to kill. In the drive to construct a virtual
facsimile, I spent hours in the library in search of photographs, diagrams,
anything to help me make my creations more realistic. In the meantime the
grown-ups around me, many of whom had been through actual war and had certainly
earned a respite from it, were sitting in their easy chairs, watching Vietnam
on TV. I loved the idea of virtual reality before the term even existed and would
have been thrilled to know that in a very few years I would be able to sit in
those very same easy chairs, in front of a PlayStation console, and experience a more
realistic simulation of flying than anything I could ever have built. </span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I hadn’t
yet learned the disturbing aspects of the simulacrum, the simulation that in
its endless recopying replaces the grounding of what used to be called,
quaintly, reality.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">How far from this kind of simulation is the reality of fighting a war with drones? To judge from Mark Brown's article in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Guardian</i>, not very far:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">“It is a lot like playing a video
game,” a former Predator drone operator matter-of-factly admits to the artist
Omer Fast. “But playing the same video game four years straight on the same
level.” His bombs kill real people though and, he admits, often not the people
he is aiming at.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Perhaps culture will always invent a way to make its young
people accept the killing of certain others as natural. Perhaps the process of
socialization engineered by the video game, in which the child becomes inured to taking life in certain antiseptic conditions, is not so different after all than the one my generation
experienced, playing war in the yard and dolling up our G.I. Joes while across
the world the real life soldiers were trudging through the muddy jungles of Vietnam.
Maybe childhood is always a preparation for war. But maybe it’s not only the
warriors who are being prepared. The problem with the simulacrum is that it’s sexier than reality. The drone pilot
sees the bodies shatter--I've read that they suffer from PTSD in the same way as soldiers in battle--but we, in front of our screens at home, only see the
spectacle of the buildings exploding on cue. I think it’s not the pilots
who are desensitized, but the rest of us, we spectators of the spectacle, we
multitudes in our easy chairs who watch our screens, tweet our praise or indignation, and either raise the flag in honor of victory, or congratulate ourselves for taking part in the resistance. Here’s Zizek:</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It could be said that the typical
World Wide Web surfer today, sitting alone in front of a PC screen, is
increasingly a monad with no direct windows onto reality, encountering only
virtual simulacra, and yet immersed more than ever in a global communication
network. The masturbathon, which builds a collective out of individuals who are
ready to share the solipsism of their own stupid enjoyment, is the form of
sexuality which fits these cyberspace coordinates perfectly.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">2</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The distance between the child’s bedroom with the PlayStation
in the corner, and the base where pilots operate killing machines, is only part
of the story. There’s also the distance between the base and the target. Pilots
in Nevada, sitting in easy chairs, can squeeze a missile into a village in
Afghanistan. If the sun never set on the British Empire, today’s United States
is the world’s omniscient eye. The villager must know by now that somebody in
the Pentagon is watching him weed the yard.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Two men shake hands in Washington. The watch commander picks
up the phone. In Nevada a drone pilot finishes his coffee and drives to
work. An hour later the villager sees a glint of light in the sky. It’s the
last thing he sees.</span></div>
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-LNjtod1zRww/WUBnJXg0TKI/AAAAAAAAAS0/EAoIy2Dh1RoPbd5CFiUEmnePMACRm6PlQCEwYBhgL/s1600/johnrosewall_Reach_2017.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1019" data-original-width="650" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-LNjtod1zRww/WUBnJXg0TKI/AAAAAAAAAS0/EAoIy2Dh1RoPbd5CFiUEmnePMACRm6PlQCEwYBhgL/s320/johnrosewall_Reach_2017.jpg" width="204" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">John Rosewall, <i>Reach</i>, 2017</span></div>
john rosewallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16839803318926361233noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-705235927615665594.post-33776467349062344072017-06-05T13:23:00.000-07:002017-06-13T16:10:14.854-07:00paint it, black<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Starting a new project always entails making bottom-line
choices that will carry through from one work to the next. One of these initial
choices, for the work that I’m doing now, had to do with ground. When I
conceived the earliest of these paintings, my first priority was to achieve the
ultimate in austerity. I would have to be rigorous in my choices in order to
ensure that nothing made it into the works that was not absolutely necessary.
As Robert Bresson commands in his <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Notes
on the Cinematograph</i>, “Cut what would deflect attention elsewhere.” I
wanted nothing that would take away from the symbolic relationships of the
figures. Starting with photographs of current events, usually from press
sources, I was already cutting enormous amounts of information in the form of
objects and people surrounding the principal figures. It seemed logical, even
obligatory, to do the same with the elements of setting. I was also thinking a
lot at the time about the de-contextualized existence of traditional sculpture,
about how the figures, on the one hand, were sufficient in themselves, but on
the other implied a setting simply with the fullness of their presence. That’s
the kind of presence that I wanted for the figures in my paintings. And if
sculpture exists in a de-contextualized space, then my figures should inhabit
the same kind of space, but in a form that was proper to painting. Bresson
again: “It is in its pure form that an art hits hard.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Black was the way to go. Any of the chromatic colors seemed
to be an addition to the work. I wanted subtraction, and a color implies too
much. In an early version of one of the pieces—“Touch,” for those keeping
score—I used a soupy green to imply the institutional setting that the figure,
who is being placed under arrest, is or would soon be inhabiting. This green
made perfect sense, but it was also superfluous. The hand that is resting on
the back of the detainee is gloved in black, and the sleeve is
blue—police-officer blue. What more needs to be said? I haven’t been able to
find this Bresson quote again, but I know I read it somewhere: “If one violin
is enough, don’t use two.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Still, part of me worried about the possibly facile nature
of this choice. Black was almost too closely associated with the dark impulses
of human nature, exactly the sorts of impulses about which I was painting. From
The Rolling Stones’ “Paint It, Black” to the Netflix series <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Black Mirror</i>, the absence of color has signified, perhaps too
neatly after all, the absence of hope or redemption. It has signified death,
the final destination for many of the figures I was depicting. I could hear
Ian, the manager of Spinal Tap, justifying the black cover of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Smell the Glove</i> to a suspicious David
St. Hubbins: “David, every movie in every cinema is about death. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Death sells</i>.” Maybe the black grounds
weren’t so much an absence as a presence that was too on-point after all, or
worse than on-point: tacky.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">But when I started to hang multiple paintings together, my
initial feeling seemed to bear out. By letting the figures hover in a deep
black space that bore no trace of any existing, real place, the figures created
their own setting, a setting that could not be fixed but that somehow
encompassed the disparate activity in the different paintings, as if it all was
taking place in some indistinct but coherent zone. One version of an
indistinct, place-less zone where all things happen is, of course, the
aforementioned black mirror that all of us carry around these days. It must
have been Baudrillard who wrote that television is the place where all things
happen. Now, of course, it’s cyberspace, which we “enter” on our phones. Can a
color depict what we have come to know as a place that we visit but never
inhabit? If so, it must be black, the color that is no color, the color of
ultimate absence. “How much more black could this be?” asks Nigel, looking into
the album cover that is a black mirror <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">avant
la lettre</i>. “And the answer is, ‘None. None more black.’”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">But another version of this indistinct zone is perhaps more
relevant to what I’m trying to accomplish. It has to do with the difference
between reality and the Real: between the place where things actually happen,
and the space where they give way to a deeper</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> truth. In his book </span><i style="font-family: 'helvetica neue', arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Violence</i><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">, in which he endeavors the task of “looking at violence awry,”
Zizek expands on an idea from Wallace Stevens of “description without place”:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This is not a description which
locates its content in a historical space and time, but a description which
creates, as the background of the phenomena it describes, an inexistent (virtual)
space of its own, so that what appears in it is not an appearance sustained by
the depth of reality behind it, but a decontextualised appearance, an
appearance which fully coincides with real being. . . . it extracts from the
confused reality its own inner form.</span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This describes perfectly what I’m seeking to do by using the
deep black spaces. I’m removing the figures from their “historical space and
time,” from the “depth of reality behind” them, and creating “an inexistent
(virtual) space” that “coincides with real being.” It brings us back to the
difference between reality and the Real. Removing the figures from “reality”
means only that they have been excised from their immediate context, the
particular field, street corner, or building in which they were photographed. In "Touch" this means fashioning, out of the absence of the black ground, a setting for the figure that is more than the institution, for his Real is the nightmare of the state's obscene power. Taking away the trappings of place means that we can now re-contextualize the
figures in a space that is identified with the Real, in order to highlight the
deeper relationships between them, and the underlying, truer state of things.
From the “confused reality” of the photographic models, I’m trying to discover
reality’s “inner form.”</span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It’s what you do when you need that extra push over the
cliff. Maybe all the Real really means is turning reality up to eleven. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-R-YHRVg4jks/WSUInfHxC8I/AAAAAAAAASk/XO-JUEXZCiUKxgkhx6xm2Zzv8RQKTDNwQCLcB/s1600/johnrosewall_Touch_2016.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-R-YHRVg4jks/WSUInfHxC8I/AAAAAAAAASk/XO-JUEXZCiUKxgkhx6xm2Zzv8RQKTDNwQCLcB/s320/johnrosewall_Touch_2016.jpg" width="208" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">John Rosewall, <i>Touch</i>, 2016</span></div>
john rosewallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16839803318926361233noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-705235927615665594.post-71102887939650250282017-05-23T15:15:00.000-07:002017-05-23T15:15:26.166-07:00art, violence, and fellow feeling<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">For the past couple of years, I’ve been painting violence. I
base the paintings on photographs from press websites, blogs, and other online
sources. In these images, which are pared down and modified from the original
material, the victim is fully rendered while the perpetrator remains either
unseen or represented by an arm or a hand, by a reach, a punch, a chokehold.
What’s the point of representing this kind of violence when anyone with any
political consciousness at all knows already that it’s happening? I don’t think
I’m enlightening anyone, though I can certainly play the usual games. We all
know how to write artist statements by now. I can discuss my process until eyes
glaze over. I can explain the critique of Western power structures, of
patriarchy, of a politics of destruction that reaches from the United States to
the farthest corners of the globe and back again. But if I’m not saying
anything that people don’t already know, why make this art in the first place?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">These are the sorts of
images that one would expect to possess a political intent. Of course the works
are political in that they have to do with power, oppression, and victimization.
But I have always had it in my head that “political art” seeks a concrete,
almost measurable effect: to change minds, to alter the discussion, to
convince, to teach. I’m not trying to do any of those things. In fact, I’ve
never considered art a very effective agent of political change, not least
because artists are usually preaching to the converted. Of course it’s
thrilling to believe that one’s work has the power to illuminate, that one can
reach into somebody else’s brain, pull the cord, and turn on the light. I’ve
always heard that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Sportsman’s
Notebook</i> was instrumental in convincing Czar Alexander II to end serfdom in
pre-revolutionary Russia. Perhaps the Czar really did need to be shown the
misery endured by the serfs under his reign. But I wonder if Turgenev’s stories
had an effect, not because they taught the Czar about an institution he knew very
well existed and must have known produced misery, but rather because they
struck an emotional chord that even a czar could not unhear.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I’ve always thought that the artist’s work is to express an
understanding of the human condition. Perhaps this type of expression can, at
times, educate an audience or change an opinion, but I believe it’s more proper
to think in terms of sympathetic communication and a shared understanding. The
artist expresses, in a clear, succinct (Proust notwithstanding), comprehensive
way, something the audience already knows or feels. The effect is not to change
minds or enlighten, but to provoke catharsis in the Aristotelian sense—the cleansing
arousal and release of emotion. Such a goal might seem, in highly politicized
times like these, as lacking ambition or weight. I don’t think so.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Late in the second chapter of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Sound and the Fury</i>, Quentin Compson remembers a conversation with his father
in which the older man conjures up an image of a “dark diceman” who not only tosses
out man’s fate according to chance, but does not even care about the outcome of
the roll. It would be absurd to believe that anyone reads this passage and
thinks, “Well, ten minutes ago I thought the world was suffused with meaning,
but now that I’ve read William Faulkner’s powerful and persuasive writing, I am
suddenly convinced that my life and all life is, indeed, meaningless.” In actuality, we
don’t learn anything from the passage. Instead, with a convulsive flash of
intellect and emotion, we <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">feel</i> the
idea that the world has no meaning. We feel it because we have felt it before.
We don’t necessarily believe it as an ultimate conclusion about our existence—some
of us might—but we have passed through the sensation, at some point in our
lives, of the absurdity and blind chance outcome of the world. Faulkner has not
convinced us of anything, but he has constructed the opportunity for a shared
understanding, for communication in the deepest sense of the word. This heightened
moment comes into existence thanks to the shocking clarity of the author’s
vision—a vision that is singular and, at the same time, not singular at all.</span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">We don’t step in front of Maya Lin’s Memorial because we want to
learn something about the war in Vietnam. We already know how many soldiers
died, we are not going to remember their names when we go home, and there is no
other “information” in the work. I can’t believe that the Memorial changes
anyone’s opinion; I would guess that it only hardens that opinion, no matter
where on the political spectrum it lies. We go because the artist has produced
a clear expression of feeling—about the War in Vietnam, about the cost of all
war—a feeling that we already possess in some form. We go because we trust that
Lin has done the work of the artist: to activate feeling, to crystallize
understanding and emotion, to construct the space for catharsis. The work
enriches us though we learn nothing that we did not know before and gain
nothing of any utility. Perhaps that’s precisely why it enriches us. It teaches
us nothing but reminds us of everything.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-vCJ7zEMItxw/WSENBbY63HI/AAAAAAAAAR4/0XM5XD09zHsLm628JcjNmY9yLEPDxD0EgCLcB/s1600/johnrosewall_Marker_2016.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="214" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-vCJ7zEMItxw/WSENBbY63HI/AAAAAAAAAR4/0XM5XD09zHsLm628JcjNmY9yLEPDxD0EgCLcB/s320/johnrosewall_Marker_2016.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">John Rosewall, <i>Marker</i>, 2016</span></div>
john rosewallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16839803318926361233noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-705235927615665594.post-26468820816628379352017-05-18T07:20:00.001-07:002017-05-18T07:20:33.364-07:00still dealing<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">“The only real fucking is done on paper,” Pynchon writes in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Gravity’s Rainbow</i>, and it’s never been
more true. Trump signs an executive order, and the rivers fill with coal dust.</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> Not
that it had ever stopped, exactly. But now they don’t even hide the collusion. Step on
stage, let the cameras roll. Put ‘er there, Pal. Deal?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The collapsing of oppositions, of all categories and
distinctions, has been brought to completion with the apotheosis of Trump. Politician
or celebrity? Outsider or insider? Gangster or businessman? Friend or enemy?
All of them golf at the same private clubs; all of them wear the same suit. We
can’t hear what they’re saying, but we can see them shaking hands.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Ruler and ruled: that one's still in play. Power
sits in a golden room and divides the preterite from
the elect. How many kids did we kill today? We don’t count that high anymore.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In </span><i style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Glengarry Glen Ross</i><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">,
Al Pacino plays the consummate hustler who fills the space with words that mean
nothing—until he goes in for the kill. Mamet depicted a hyper-masculinity
which at the time had slipped into anachronism. “I swear, it’s not a world of
men,” laments Pacino’s Ricky Roma. But now it’s a world of men again, men who wear
long red ties like an amulet, who ride horses shirtless, who laugh all
the way to Caymans. Put ‘er there, Pal. Deal?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Deal.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ho5qZO06kD8/WRo7RDXlJbI/AAAAAAAAAQw/eYnskXsPuf01xQ2-DLQtyeDecngeTiZmgCLcB/s1600/Bargain%2BDetail.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="234" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ho5qZO06kD8/WRo7RDXlJbI/AAAAAAAAAQw/eYnskXsPuf01xQ2-DLQtyeDecngeTiZmgCLcB/s320/Bargain%2BDetail.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">John Rosewall, <i>Bargain</i> (detail), 2017</span></div>
john rosewallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16839803318926361233noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-705235927615665594.post-22212414543790799252017-05-13T14:52:00.000-07:002017-05-13T20:58:30.183-07:00third verse, different from the first<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I started my blog, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Terrain</i>,
back in January of 2012. At that time I was making photographic abstractions
and was fascinated by the correspondences that I saw between the work that I
and other abstract photographers were doing and the work of abstract painters.
The idea of the blog was to place photographs and paintings side by side in
order to explore these common threads.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Ever since I began to paint in 2014, my work has taken a
markedly different direction. I now consider myself a realist painter, and my
subject matter is power: how power moves from the inside out, from the top on
down, from West to East, from capitals to countrysides, from the powerful,
through their agents, to the powerless below. But I’m still fascinated by
correspondences. My paintings, for instance, have so far been based on news photographs,
maintaining their connection to the real of world events. But they are also
based on the reporting that I see, the reading that I do, and the writing that
I create. More and more I’ve come to think of my art practice as multi-faceted,
with the images occupying only the most prominent position in a nexus of
seeing, reading, writing, and painting.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This interpenetration of news, critical theory, photographic images, essay writing, and most of all, painting, is what I'll be exploring in the future here on <i>Terrain</i>. Deal?</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><!--EndFragment--></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span>
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span>
</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-dbAaSCyYrlE/WRd84vhvVSI/AAAAAAAAAQI/gZtPYnnznqE0kth9hFFskLNOKn2NwiMRQCLcB/s1600/johnrosewall_Bargain_2017.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-dbAaSCyYrlE/WRd84vhvVSI/AAAAAAAAAQI/gZtPYnnznqE0kth9hFFskLNOKn2NwiMRQCLcB/s320/johnrosewall_Bargain_2017.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">John Rosewall,<i> Bargain</i>, 2017</span></div>
john rosewallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16839803318926361233noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-705235927615665594.post-51991973671109120452012-05-31T16:46:00.000-07:002012-05-31T16:46:40.136-07:00All Together Nowstan brakhage<br />
<br />
still from the hand-painted film <i>night music,</i> 1986<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-rdrIZkzuh1Y/T8gB4Z3vl_I/AAAAAAAAAOA/E31r9OagpbA/s1600/brakhage+night+music+1986.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-rdrIZkzuh1Y/T8gB4Z3vl_I/AAAAAAAAAOA/E31r9OagpbA/s320/brakhage+night+music+1986.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
still from the hand-painted film <i>the dante quartet, </i>1987<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XRbn_KdwkMw/T8gB5HMz0nI/AAAAAAAAAOI/83dQqmigSSg/s1600/brakhage+the+dante+quartet+1987.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XRbn_KdwkMw/T8gB5HMz0nI/AAAAAAAAAOI/83dQqmigSSg/s320/brakhage+the+dante+quartet+1987.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
still from the hand-painted film <i>love song, </i>2001<br />
<br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KNWA93ljfTk/T8gB3NKiYUI/AAAAAAAAAN4/GaUZshGZUCE/s1600/brakhage+love+song+2001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="246" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KNWA93ljfTk/T8gB3NKiYUI/AAAAAAAAAN4/GaUZshGZUCE/s320/brakhage+love+song+2001.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />john rosewallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16839803318926361233noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-705235927615665594.post-24987629306073757442012-05-20T03:45:00.000-07:002012-05-20T03:45:34.988-07:00worlds within worldsroland flexner<br />
<br />
sn10, no date, sumi ink on paper<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7oBtrJTTgUU/T7jI1fMPqHI/AAAAAAAAAM8/5NWx-4PAuXw/s1600/flexner,+roland+sn10+sumi+ink+on+paper.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="316" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7oBtrJTTgUU/T7jI1fMPqHI/AAAAAAAAAM8/5NWx-4PAuXw/s400/flexner,+roland+sn10+sumi+ink+on+paper.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
sn71, no date, sumi ink on paper<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-22kuaZbXnMk/T7jJP9b_hGI/AAAAAAAAANE/vgX5l7-WbZE/s1600/flexner,+roland+sn71+sumi+ink+on+paper.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="316" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-22kuaZbXnMk/T7jJP9b_hGI/AAAAAAAAANE/vgX5l7-WbZE/s400/flexner,+roland+sn71+sumi+ink+on+paper.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
hiroshi sugimoto<br />
<br />
lightning fields, 2009, gelatin silver print<br />
<br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-YRX2wrSv7ds/T7jK2oP8JVI/AAAAAAAAANk/LvfqbH_v7uo/s1600/Sugimoto+LFields+128b,+2009.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-YRX2wrSv7ds/T7jK2oP8JVI/AAAAAAAAANk/LvfqbH_v7uo/s400/Sugimoto+LFields+128b,+2009.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
lightning fields, 2009, gelatin silver print<br />
<br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-X5srZMPBByg/T7jK2CXGnQI/AAAAAAAAANc/9lCEPbeLKec/s1600/Sugimoto+LFields+128%252C+2009.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-X5srZMPBByg/T7jK2CXGnQI/AAAAAAAAANc/9lCEPbeLKec/s400/Sugimoto+LFields+128%252C+2009.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />john rosewallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16839803318926361233noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-705235927615665594.post-16530864863249289442012-05-15T21:29:00.000-07:002012-05-15T21:36:36.271-07:00on paperjohn rosewall<br />
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queen catherine, 2012, archival pigment print<br />
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<img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-69eSKT_XHZo/T7MrtTPSxMI/AAAAAAAAAMo/zbXWukwy2SU/s400/Untitled+%2528074n%2529+b.jpg" width="400" /></div>
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the ox-bow incident, 2012, archival pigment print<br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Czqi9oEbtlQ/T7MrqGKEkvI/AAAAAAAAAMg/n7tz2GImFSY/s1600/The+Ox-Bow+Incident+b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Czqi9oEbtlQ/T7MrqGKEkvI/AAAAAAAAAMg/n7tz2GImFSY/s400/The+Ox-Bow+Incident+b.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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antoni tapies<br />
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saint gall, 1962, lithograph<br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-jGRrNJnoZKA/T7MrUuIdCjI/AAAAAAAAAMI/VSjL8RK-E38/s1600/tapies%252C+antoni+saint+gall+litho+1962.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="310" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-jGRrNJnoZKA/T7MrUuIdCjI/AAAAAAAAAMI/VSjL8RK-E38/s400/tapies%252C+antoni+saint+gall+litho+1962.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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transpuar, n.d., etching and aquatint<br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-tACYf9z7gn0/T7MrWcvjqgI/AAAAAAAAAMQ/BAtiFrAta8Y/s1600/tapies%252C+antoni+traspuar+etch+and+aqua+nd.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="323" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-tACYf9z7gn0/T7MrWcvjqgI/AAAAAAAAAMQ/BAtiFrAta8Y/s400/tapies%252C+antoni+traspuar+etch+and+aqua+nd.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />john rosewallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16839803318926361233noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-705235927615665594.post-20880416169856538992012-05-08T19:31:00.000-07:002012-05-09T08:08:19.307-07:00the brother from another planetedward mapplethorpe<br />
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variation no. 10, 2011, silver gelatin print<br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hEamt9nFHUI/T6nWd8WiUCI/AAAAAAAAAL0/Swih08LEkjs/s1600/map+variation+no.+10+s+gel+sil+2011.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hEamt9nFHUI/T6nWd8WiUCI/AAAAAAAAAL0/Swih08LEkjs/s400/map+variation+no.+10+s+gel+sil+2011.jpg" width="331" /></a></div>
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variation no. 9, 2011, silver gelatin print</div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-7M2hbk8_4T0/T6nWfbhp17I/AAAAAAAAAL8/8ofrgt4vqU4/s1600/map+variation+no.+9+s+gel+sil+2011.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-7M2hbk8_4T0/T6nWfbhp17I/AAAAAAAAAL8/8ofrgt4vqU4/s400/map+variation+no.+9+s+gel+sil+2011.jpg" width="332" /></a></div>
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more at: http://edwardmapplethorpe.com/john rosewallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16839803318926361233noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-705235927615665594.post-21085258029512488212012-04-26T19:28:00.000-07:002012-04-26T19:28:36.309-07:00and now for a word from our sponsorsjohn rosewall<br />
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untitled, 2012, archival pigment print<br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-1b-O9RxQVRM/T5oDvqFaNKI/AAAAAAAAALg/vEpfaYMcPJE/s1600/Untitled+(077p)b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-1b-O9RxQVRM/T5oDvqFaNKI/AAAAAAAAALg/vEpfaYMcPJE/s400/Untitled+(077p)b.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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vesuvius, 2012, archival pigment print<br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-L0tqwtmRXhU/T5oDil2yNRI/AAAAAAAAALY/O0jP-hV1M50/s1600/Vesuvius+b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-L0tqwtmRXhU/T5oDil2yNRI/AAAAAAAAALY/O0jP-hV1M50/s400/Vesuvius+b.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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for more, please visit www.johnrosewall.comjohn rosewallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16839803318926361233noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-705235927615665594.post-83502082131341165362012-04-15T08:45:00.000-07:002012-04-15T08:45:23.177-07:00A Glorious Mess<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
tara cronin</div>
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i would rather run together, 2011, medium not specified</div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-b4DLnJotZoA/T4rq1h5T4KI/AAAAAAAAAKU/aD1PoenH5fg/s1600/cronin+i+would+rather+run+together.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-b4DLnJotZoA/T4rq1h5T4KI/AAAAAAAAAKU/aD1PoenH5fg/s400/cronin+i+would+rather+run+together.jpg" width="326" /></a></div>
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soft as feathers, 2011, medium not specified</div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-xEBObiDjFTs/T4rq3K-NSBI/AAAAAAAAAKc/j8Y7oV9z6-w/s1600/cronin+soft+as+feathers+2011.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-xEBObiDjFTs/T4rq3K-NSBI/AAAAAAAAAKc/j8Y7oV9z6-w/s400/cronin+soft+as+feathers+2011.jpg" width="326" /></a></div>
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elizabeth neel</div>
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inglorious, 2006, oil on canvas</div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-yKlMATAIAM8/T4rsuhAV-GI/AAAAAAAAALE/eXK1j3LM1kg/s1600/neel+inglorious+2006+oil+canvas.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-yKlMATAIAM8/T4rsuhAV-GI/AAAAAAAAALE/eXK1j3LM1kg/s400/neel+inglorious+2006+oil+canvas.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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rivals, 2008, oil on canvas</div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-DKJ3xQIwDQg/T4rswN8zF_I/AAAAAAAAALM/v2I-BpBEfgU/s1600/neel+rivals+2008.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-DKJ3xQIwDQg/T4rswN8zF_I/AAAAAAAAALM/v2I-BpBEfgU/s400/neel+rivals+2008.jpg" width="348" /></a></div>john rosewallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16839803318926361233noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-705235927615665594.post-2010473770994762342012-03-23T12:03:00.001-07:002012-03-23T12:03:40.393-07:00still<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
michelle kloehn</div>
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untitled, 2009, tintype</div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-LZkjarnby1s/T2zHrHHuKBI/AAAAAAAAAJ0/k9aBDtnXRJw/s1600/Kloehn,+Michelle+untitled+2009+tintype+d.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-LZkjarnby1s/T2zHrHHuKBI/AAAAAAAAAJ0/k9aBDtnXRJw/s400/Kloehn,+Michelle+untitled+2009+tintype+d.jpg" width="341" /></a></div>
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untitled, 2009, tintype</div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UIeuy4xHt6k/T2zHsRdqVxI/AAAAAAAAAJ8/KsRF5VqzFOM/s1600/Kloehn,+Michelle+untitled+2009+tintype.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UIeuy4xHt6k/T2zHsRdqVxI/AAAAAAAAAJ8/KsRF5VqzFOM/s400/Kloehn,+Michelle+untitled+2009+tintype.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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lesley vance<br />
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untitled (48), 2010, oil on linen<br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-jGPR6gbjXP0/T2zHwtczRYI/AAAAAAAAAKE/B13gLf904jg/s1600/Vance,+Lesley+Untitled+(48),+2010,+oil+on+linen.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-jGPR6gbjXP0/T2zHwtczRYI/AAAAAAAAAKE/B13gLf904jg/s400/Vance,+Lesley+Untitled+(48),+2010,+oil+on+linen.jpg" width="281" /></a></div>
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untitled (51), 2011, oil on linen</div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rAQ5X8ipQcU/T2zHzvCUVcI/AAAAAAAAAKM/UNyv20oOpG0/s1600/Vance,+Lesley+Untitled+(51),+2011,+oil+on+linen.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rAQ5X8ipQcU/T2zHzvCUVcI/AAAAAAAAAKM/UNyv20oOpG0/s400/Vance,+Lesley+Untitled+(51),+2011,+oil+on+linen.jpg" width="328" /></a></div>
<br />john rosewallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16839803318926361233noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-705235927615665594.post-70819586684152429182012-03-06T11:55:00.001-08:002012-03-06T11:55:48.890-08:00way out west<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
I'm diverging from my usual subject matter this week to praise one of my favorite artists, Kenneth Price, who died just over a week ago at his home in Taos. In the small ceramic sculptures that Price has been creating for the last several years, one notes above all the play between sensuous, playful, suggestive forms and a mottled, sickly surface. Each is a multivalent reference to nature and the body, or as Sarah Lehrer-Graiwer put it recently on the <i>Artforum</i> website, "they are snot, slug, serpent, squid, scrotum, and surf." They are also supreme examples of the transcendent possibilities of the crafted object. Here is what Price said in a recent issue of <i>Artworks </i>magazine:</div>
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"My primary satisfaction comes from making the work, and my idea of success is getting it to look right. So if it looks right, if it has some kind of presence or energy, or comes alive, or has magic--those are all visual things, and it's very hard to translate those into words."</div>
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There is a Price show on now at Kayne Griffin Corcoran in Santa Monica, and a career retrospective scheduled for LACMA in the fall.</div>
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kenneth price</div>
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inez, 2010, fired and painted clay</div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-gU5FS9I2RXw/T059ORGWTEI/AAAAAAAAAJY/s10PT_xZh1A/s1600/price+inez+2010+fired+and+painted+clay.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-gU5FS9I2RXw/T059ORGWTEI/AAAAAAAAAJY/s10PT_xZh1A/s400/price+inez+2010+fired+and+painted+clay.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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way out west, 2010, fired and painted clay</div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WmVg5jhwWH8/T059O17r_dI/AAAAAAAAAJg/1Isi0-55jPM/s1600/price+out+west+2010+fired+and+painted+clay.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WmVg5jhwWH8/T059O17r_dI/AAAAAAAAAJg/1Isi0-55jPM/s400/price+out+west+2010+fired+and+painted+clay.jpg" width="321" /></a></div>
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cocodo, 2008, acrylic on fired ceramic<br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-8FMrUlMN3oM/T05-TW7HUcI/AAAAAAAAAJo/uL1SpvNqDuw/s1600/cocodo+2008+acrylic+on+fired+ceramic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="285" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-8FMrUlMN3oM/T05-TW7HUcI/AAAAAAAAAJo/uL1SpvNqDuw/s400/cocodo+2008+acrylic+on+fired+ceramic.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />john rosewallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16839803318926361233noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-705235927615665594.post-34605431149621353402012-02-28T07:59:00.000-08:002012-02-28T07:59:13.396-08:00we're just living in itWith simultaneous exhibitions at two galleries here in Los Angeles, and with three booths at last month's Art Contemporary Los Angeles featuring his work, artist Sam Falls is the man of the hour. Of particular relevance to this blog is the fact that Falls combines photography and painting, applying acrylics and other media on top of photographs, in works that are true hybrids.<br />
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It's Sam Falls' world--at least for a month. Here are some images to help give us the lay of the land.<br />
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sam falls<br />
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untitled (pp8), 2011, acrylic on c-print<br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-y5JCaxfPWaw/Tx2GWm0BO6I/AAAAAAAAAGw/_8rFYdfmJT0/s1600/Falls%252C+Sam+Untitled+%2528PP8%2529+2011+acrylic+on+c-print.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-y5JCaxfPWaw/Tx2GWm0BO6I/AAAAAAAAAGw/_8rFYdfmJT0/s320/Falls%252C+Sam+Untitled+%2528PP8%2529+2011+acrylic+on+c-print.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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surf wax still life, 2010, acrylic, pastel and watercolor on archival pigment print<br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-EDktOHjzIy8/Tx2GYsniSSI/AAAAAAAAAG4/Uba4BHBvo98/s1600/falls+surf+wax+still+life+2010+acrylic%252C+pastel+and+watercolor+on+arch.+pig.+print.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-EDktOHjzIy8/Tx2GYsniSSI/AAAAAAAAAG4/Uba4BHBvo98/s320/falls+surf+wax+still+life+2010+acrylic%252C+pastel+and+watercolor+on+arch.+pig.+print.jpg" width="264" /></a></div>
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tires (blue), 2011, acrylic on archival pigment print<br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-NSZRlMUrZhI/Tx2FsNOIBOI/AAAAAAAAAGg/82z_Ow-8Yq8/s1600/falls+tires+%2528blue%2529+2011+acrylic+on+arch+pig+print.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-NSZRlMUrZhI/Tx2FsNOIBOI/AAAAAAAAAGg/82z_Ow-8Yq8/s320/falls+tires+%2528blue%2529+2011+acrylic+on+arch+pig+print.jpg" width="256" /></a></div>
<br />john rosewallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16839803318926361233noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-705235927615665594.post-80797006053008276542012-02-21T08:16:00.000-08:002012-02-21T08:16:29.776-08:00material<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Here's Ed Moses in a recent <i>L. A. Weekly</i>: </div>
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"I'd like to make it very clear that I'm not creative and I'm not trying to express myself. I'm an explorer, I'm trying to discover things, discover the phenomenal world by examining it, by looking at it, by playing with the materiality, pushing it around, shoving it, throwing it in the air."</div>
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The idea that making art is a process of interacting with materials is hardly new, but it provides us with yet another way in which painting and photography are operating in the same space these days. As writers on photography have begun to point out, and as I've already discussed in earlier posts, photographers are conceiving of their works as physical objects just as painters have been doing for decades; and they are reacting to this physicality in ways that loosely parallel what painters have done before them. Mariah Robertson, for example, cuts her pictures into oblong trapezoids and lets them fall loosely within the confines of a box frame. It would probably be going too far to describe them as oddly shaped pieces of paper that just happen to have an image on one side--though one certainly feels the temptation to do so. In another example, Soo Kim handcuts her representational C-Prints and allows the trimmed pieces, still attached to the image surface like tabs, to curl delicately forward into the space of the viewer. As these artists demonstrate, the traditional view of the photographic image as a window onto the world, and of the photographic surface as the transparent vehicle for this image, is being contested in all sorts of ways; at the furthest end, it is being abandoned.</div>
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Marco Breuer is another of these photographers who directly engage the work as an object. But not just another: In fact he is a pioneer in the methodology of intervention, and has employed its logic more radically and single-mindedly than the artists I've already mentioned. Yet when one comes face to face with his work, it is often hard to see what he has done; in reproduction, it is next to impossible. This paradox is an effect of the radicality of his procedures. Whereas Kim or Robertson begin by making an image, and then come at the paper support as an object to be manipulated after the fact, Breuer uses physical intervention to create an image in the first place. He attacks photographic paper in various ways--by scratching it, abrading it, even dropping lit matches or sparklers onto it--before there is anything pictured on the surface. These physical acts themselves, in addition to light and chemistry, originate what we see. More than any other artist working today, Breuer engages the physical surface of his photographs, and by doing so forces his audience to confront the reality of what we are experiencing: a piece of paper that just happens to have an image on one side.</div>
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marco breuer</div>
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untitled (tip), 2000, gelatin silver print</div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-GZgllS5If5k/TzQ02jg-tII/AAAAAAAAAI0/zBAIZi5v0_s/s1600/breuer+untitled+(tip)+2000+gsp.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-GZgllS5If5k/TzQ02jg-tII/AAAAAAAAAI0/zBAIZi5v0_s/s320/breuer+untitled+(tip)+2000+gsp.jpg" width="262" /></a></div>
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motion (c-922), 2009, chromogenic paper, scratched</div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-86gDqLrZ5fI/TzQ0291HVBI/AAAAAAAAAI8/pYt1bCGi9kc/s1600/breur+motion+(c-922)+2009+chromogenic+paper,+scratched.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-86gDqLrZ5fI/TzQ0291HVBI/AAAAAAAAAI8/pYt1bCGi9kc/s320/breur+motion+(c-922)+2009+chromogenic+paper,+scratched.jpg" width="262" /></a></div>
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ed moses</div>
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ocnaf, 2008, acrylic on canvas</div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-k9XDVbm5mDA/TzQ03vj3joI/AAAAAAAAAJM/gCuMyKzMdrU/s1600/moses+ocnaf+2008+ac+on+canvas.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-k9XDVbm5mDA/TzQ03vj3joI/AAAAAAAAAJM/gCuMyKzMdrU/s320/moses+ocnaf+2008+ac+on+canvas.jpg" width="258" /></a></div>
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awa, 200, acrylic on canvas</div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-EiYbvX3-ivo/TzQ03HPQI3I/AAAAAAAAAJE/WFwZsT400o0/s1600/moses+awa+2000+ac+on+canvas.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-EiYbvX3-ivo/TzQ03HPQI3I/AAAAAAAAAJE/WFwZsT400o0/s320/moses+awa+2000+ac+on+canvas.jpg" width="258" /></a></div>
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<br />john rosewallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16839803318926361233noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-705235927615665594.post-46823422419462409852012-02-14T07:49:00.000-08:002012-02-14T07:49:14.810-08:00a short detour<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Although the focus of this blog is abstraction,
I’ve chosen to post two artists this week for whom representational elements feature prominently in their work.</span> Albert Ohlen and Michele Abeles arrange
patterned fabric; printed words, numbers, or letters on paper; even images of disembodied torsos and limbs, amidst
areas of vibrant color or harried squiggles of paint. The fact that we are dealing with objects--in the case of Abeles, almost exclusively--certainly makes us read the images differently than we would if they were completely non-objective. Yet because of the way the objects are deployed, they produce the kind of visuality that we associate with more traditional abstraction, based on vectors of energy, fields of texture and color, and marks from the artist's hand.<br />
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A second kind of abstraction results when these myriad objects, stripped of context and chosen, it seems, for their lack of cultural resonance, are made to exist in the same visual space as scumbled paint and bands of pure lavender. They end up registering on the same formal level as the more conventionally abstract features that accompany and sometimes obscure them. Language is reduced
to visual texture, a bent limb to simply another kind of line. They don’t
throw us back to the world of concepts the way an image
of a gesticulating JFK or the word "blue" stenciled in red used to do. They are objects abstracted from meaning, free-floating signifiers
signifying nothing but the impossibility of meaningful signification. What else is one to do with the amusingly ham-fisted rhyme of raw potatoes with male genitalia--the latter left teasingly out of the frame in one of Abeles' photographs?<br />
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albert ohlen<br />
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gucken-krone, 2004, oil, lacquer, inkjet print on canvas<br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-metdy3Dz4sk/TylstdIm3GI/AAAAAAAAAIE/d_uX3v4JVMY/s1600/Ohlen,+Albert+Gucken-Krone.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-metdy3Dz4sk/TylstdIm3GI/AAAAAAAAAIE/d_uX3v4JVMY/s400/Ohlen,+Albert+Gucken-Krone.jpg" width="313" /></a></div>
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hombre, 2008, oil and paper on canvas</div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-pApywdexB7c/TyvzKqgA7zI/AAAAAAAAAIk/RhD6Jbb2_kw/s1600/d602f20b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-pApywdexB7c/TyvzKqgA7zI/AAAAAAAAAIk/RhD6Jbb2_kw/s400/d602f20b.jpg" width="347" /></a></div>
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michele abeles</div>
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number, lycra, man, hand, rock, m.l. cardboard, 2009, archival pigment print </div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-NU64UlLvgBo/Tylsz-x_XQI/AAAAAAAAAIU/1UBjqP0fIhg/s1600/Abeles,+Michele+Number,+Lycra,+Man,+Hand,+Rock,+M.L.+Cardboard.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-NU64UlLvgBo/Tylsz-x_XQI/AAAAAAAAAIU/1UBjqP0fIhg/s400/Abeles,+Michele+Number,+Lycra,+Man,+Hand,+Rock,+M.L.+Cardboard.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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hand, letters, tape, magenta, red, polyester, body, veneer, 2011, archival pigment print</div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WKZ2kckoBVM/Tyls01Qzb6I/AAAAAAAAAIc/1GJSS9SEg-g/s1600/Abeles,+Michele+Hand,+Letters,+Tape,+Magenta,+Red,+Polyester,+Body,+Veneer.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WKZ2kckoBVM/Tyls01Qzb6I/AAAAAAAAAIc/1GJSS9SEg-g/s400/Abeles,+Michele+Hand,+Letters,+Tape,+Magenta,+Red,+Polyester,+Body,+Veneer.jpg" width="300" /></a></div>
<br />john rosewallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16839803318926361233noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-705235927615665594.post-64948676336017897632012-02-06T07:50:00.000-08:002012-02-06T07:50:00.824-08:00twain<br />
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In reproduction these works could almost be from the same
artist. First we notice the austere middle gray and the lines that fall haphazardly, or meander desultorily, across the mostly uniform picture plane. Layers have been applied, then covered
over, then partially erased again, built up, rubbed away, with all of this activity straining to reveal . . . nothing much, it turns out. These works are a kind of action painting—or action photography, if such a thing can exist—in which actions are repudiated much of the time, perhaps because they were half-hearted in the first place, or perhaps because, although process counts, results themselves are suspect.<br />
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But of course the paintings of Christopher Wool are large
affairs, ab-ex large, made of enamel and ink (he silkscreens) on linen. Alone or in series, they dominate the gallery space and overwhelm the viewer. Anthony Pearson, on the other hand, keeps his pictures small, in the neighborhood of five by seven inches, so that one has to come up close and look hard. They are products of the
darkroom, solarized silver gelatin photographs of drawings from his own hand.
Importantly, they are almost always grouped with a sculpture, in repeatable installations that Pearson calls “arrangements.” One confronts a chair-sized
sculpture of bronze in the front, and two photographs, matted and framed, on the wall
behind it. Image and object correspond to varying degrees. Lines echo, forms nearly match, or there might be a similar appearance of patination. In fact the photographs I have posted are not intended to stand alone, but are details of two such arrangements.<br />
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When we allow ourselves to ignore otherwise essential considerations of scale and context, we are free to examine these works as instances of a common, though by no means ubiquitous, strain within today's abstraction. Each work derives from a process that one senses has been thoughtfully organized and deliberately performed, but the end result strikes one nevertheless as
tentative, searching, and unresolved, as if the artist did not so much
finish the work as abandon it in the final stages of production. It seems to be a way of saying: okay, that’s enough, there's no more progress to be made here.
The piece might not be quite right, or quite finished, but nothing in the
world ever is.</div>
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anthony pearson<br />
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from the installation: untitled (pour arrangement), 2010, solarized silver gelatin photograph<br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-q_Gdnf0foKU/TxhIKJcajOI/AAAAAAAAAEQ/UAEnGmo1z-w/s1600/Pearson+2010.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-q_Gdnf0foKU/TxhIKJcajOI/AAAAAAAAAEQ/UAEnGmo1z-w/s320/Pearson+2010.jpg" width="251" /></a></div>
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from the installation: untitled (slip cast slab arrangement), 2008, solarized silver gelatin photograph<br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-fsfQBQ1w5Xw/TxhKKcKzSqI/AAAAAAAAAFI/XaaKu8ry33o/s1600/Pearson+2008+%2528c%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-fsfQBQ1w5Xw/TxhKKcKzSqI/AAAAAAAAAFI/XaaKu8ry33o/s320/Pearson+2008+%2528c%2529.jpg" width="257" /></a></div>
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christopher wool<br />
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untitled, 2007, enamel on linen<br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-zSRWEv5F_RI/TxhLai6dGII/AAAAAAAAAFY/lBydvtxr34M/s1600/Wool%252C+Christopher+Untitled+2007.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-zSRWEv5F_RI/TxhLai6dGII/AAAAAAAAAFY/lBydvtxr34M/s320/Wool%252C+Christopher+Untitled+2007.jpg" width="255" /></a></div>
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untitled, 2009, enamel and silkscreen ink on linen<br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-i7keVYpHE04/TxhLYTYEK0I/AAAAAAAAAFQ/rNc9T09mjTc/s1600/Wool%252C+Christopher+Untitled+2009.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-i7keVYpHE04/TxhLYTYEK0I/AAAAAAAAAFQ/rNc9T09mjTc/s320/Wool%252C+Christopher+Untitled+2009.jpg" width="242" /></a></div>
<br />john rosewallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16839803318926361233noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-705235927615665594.post-1608871370683353422012-01-27T10:53:00.000-08:002012-01-27T22:39:47.209-08:00grounded<br />
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In these bodies of work, ground is the subject: the ground
we stand on, the ground of the work of art. David Maisel has photographed the
topography around Utah’s Great Salt Lake from the sky. The roughly geometrical
forms, as well as the startling coloration, result from the combined activity of human
and natural processes. Painter Ingrid Calame has stayed closer to earth,
tracing water marks, tire tracks, and myriad spills on concrete or
asphalt. She overlays these tracings to create a single work, outlining or filling
in shapes with saturated color. (There is a wonderful photograph on the
Internet of Calame in the process of drawing, paper spread on the floor, the artist squatting low to the ground, a studio cat resting
comfortably on the horizontal slab of her back.)</div>
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Each ground becomes an index: the earth a repository of nature and humanity; the works a second-order imprint of those impressions. Humans scratch and soil the earth. Light hits emulsion, and pen touches paper. It's all about surfaces and the marks upon them.</div>
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david maisel<br />
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terminal mirage 18, 2004(?), chromogenic print<br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Aw8Pn5AVUOc/TyDq7PcZjSI/AAAAAAAAAHg/aJN1Gh9fMlg/s1600/maisel%252C+david+terminal+mirage+18%252C+2004%2528%253F%2529%252C+c-print.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Aw8Pn5AVUOc/TyDq7PcZjSI/AAAAAAAAAHg/aJN1Gh9fMlg/s320/maisel%252C+david+terminal+mirage+18%252C+2004%2528%253F%2529%252C+c-print.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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terminal mirage 5, 2004(?), chromogenic print<br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Dx80gTR8U84/TyGuxerE8WI/AAAAAAAAAH0/KUqav7vI53E/s1600/maisel+5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Dx80gTR8U84/TyGuxerE8WI/AAAAAAAAAH0/KUqav7vI53E/s320/maisel+5.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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ingrid calame<br />
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from #274 drawing (tracing from the indianapolis motor speedway), 2008, oil paint on aluminum<br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-6ysTSxoTDcM/TyDqz3Ls1pI/AAAAAAAAAHI/eEzZYbTNJ5A/s1600/calame%252C+ingrid+from+%2523274+drawing+%2528tracing+from+the+indianapolis+motor+speedway%2529%252C+2008%252C+oil+paint+on+aluminum.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-6ysTSxoTDcM/TyDqz3Ls1pI/AAAAAAAAAHI/eEzZYbTNJ5A/s400/calame%252C+ingrid+from+%2523274+drawing+%2528tracing+from+the+indianapolis+motor+speedway%2529%252C+2008%252C+oil+paint+on+aluminum.jpg" width="245" /></a></div>
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step on a crack . . . msship2 no. 5, 2009, oil paint on aluminum<br />
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<br />john rosewallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16839803318926361233noreply@blogger.com0