Au Natural Part 1

Being in Louisiana for a while has the effect of making one think about nature more than usual for a New Yorker. And when I spied this vine it made the usual connection to the work of Andy Goldsworthy.

I was also struck recently by a comment made by Cora Cohen when we were at the Joseph Beuys: Make the Secrets Productive exhibition currently at Pace Wildenstein. She reminded me of his idea of social sculpture as a gesamtkunstwerk. Whether that interaction is societal or political can depend on one's point of view. So is interacting with nature politically or automatically green? In my case, I am only a natural bystander, photographing things as I find them without any alterations as seen here, always looking for spots where nature mimics the man-made. In Andy Goldsworthy's case he does an active intervention via natural materials collected from the site. We are probably both descended from Beuys view of interaction although somewhat far afield.







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Hot Color, Cool Observations

Ilana Manolson's recent show at Jason McCoy surprised me. At first glance I was prepared to dislike it, the super heated color and oily feel of the paint put me off. But the more I looked the more I was drawn in.

Realist elements combined with fields of color abstraction give a riotous picture of the chaos of nature. She seemed a keen observer of plant life and of the moment where things are in flux. As it turned out, she worked as a naturalist doing a long term condition assessment of 12-inch squares of grazing land.

She has interesting painting techniques as well. Layering paint then using spatulas and scrapers to pull up paint revealing highlights that feel internally illuminated. Try to see the show, these images do not convey what the paint reveals.