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Incongruity

 

One of my most powerful and influential muses both in my writing and photography is incongruity. I believe this is the case for two reasons.  First, growing up gay in mid 20th Century America means you daily face living in a state of perpetual incongruousness. Almost every thought you have is incongruous with your surroundings and the apparent thoughts of most everyone around you. Your self-confidence, self-respect and development as a human being depends on embracing and owning your state of incongruity.  As a child and especially as a closeted teenager and college student I was often called a non-conformist and an iconoclast.  That was unfair to true non-conformists and iconoclasts because I did  not choose to be so whereas they do.  What appeared to be non-conformity and iconoclasm was merely the manifestations of my incongruous condition.

The second reason for my creative relationship with incongruity is Manhattan,  my life-long environment. Environmentally, my home town provided a visual and cultural stew that celebrated and exploded with incongruity. As a child and closeted young man, I could swim in the waters of Manhattan with complete confidence and comfort. Who would notice my quirky little self in this ocean of intensely complex cultural, economic, political, racial and ethnic diversity and this visual cacophony and feast of discordant shapes, colors and textures?

So incongruity became my home and my muse.

I believe that New York is as important to the art world as it is because this city”s uniquely incongruous nature drives an unequaled atmosphere of creative energy and frenetic industry. I was recently asked why I “limit” my camera to New York. In fact, I almost never travel with my camera.  My inventory of Manhattan photography is vast.  And having traveled extensively throughout more than two dozen countries and countless cities and towns, I have but a few hundred old transparencies buried in a drawer somewhere.

The reason is that my muse is a very demanding mistress. Paris is a city of harmony and balance.  London delivers an abundance of quaint, stately and a touch of the eccentric.  Tokyo is an avalanche of uniformity and elegance. Bangkok is an ocean of golden spires. Amsterdam’s incongruity lies in the sexual antics hidden behind sparkling clean windows and compulsively neat little houses. But if I photographed these places I would feel like an adulterer.

For many reasons: Chance, the forces of chaos, competing cultural perspectives, subconscious manifestations of the city’s demographics–Manhattan’s is the queen of incongruity. My camera’s appetite for it seems never to be satisfied by the cornucopia of inharmonious diversity of architecture, styles and design.  New York never disappoints in that regard.  In most any direction you look in most parts of town, you will find bizarre, often inappropriate and jarring juxtapositions of lifestyles and perspectives that should make for one big jumble of chaos but instead it is in that brazen incongruity that the city finds an amazing visual harmony.

Tourists are often jarred by this as they discover that a wrong turn on a city block can transport you into an entirely different world after merely walking a few feet. Other than the city’s famous grid pattern, little else has been done in concert thanks to the egos and individuality of very wealthy men and the American habit of borrowing architectural styles and ornamental designs and decorative effects from several thousand years of human history which is no where more apparent than in this city.

On one city block you may catch glimpses of ancient Babylonia, Classical Greece, Medieval Europe, Art Nouveau Vienna, and Renaissance France.  Some of these will be bizarrely newish, some aged through recent neglect and other parts deliberately made to look weathered over hundreds or even thousands of years.  In fact, one of the most charming characteristics of this great lady with a passion for phallic symbols is that it is often impossible to differentiate between neglect and artful and deliberate antiquing.

I will be quite content to spend the rest of my life exploring this town’s details. I consider myself to be extremely lucky to have found a model who remains timeless, always changing and forever surprising.  My work is completely a product of my environment. Incongruity.  Except Manhattan is also the glue that holds it together, and I mean “it” in every sense of the word.

What’s up Winkleman?


plein air landscape painting
Painting From Life vs. From Photos


The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.
Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Ernest

Has art dealer Edward Winkleman become a cultural icon? If so, it seems we should pay attention to what he is saying . . .

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Words of Artists

I have always had an obsession with collecting quotes from books, particulary books about or by artists. I have notebooks filled with them and even started a site dedicated to art quotes.

Here are a few favorites… more… »

Please Move On

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Like many of you, I have a hobby. It’s not an unusual avocation. I take photographs. I was born on Manhattan island and have lived my entire life in this astonishing feast of visual diversity and eccentricity. And as a native of this town rather than a tourist, I enjoy the luxury of time allowing me to see far beyond the skyline, the great buildings and the rich tapestry of glamorous tourist attractions. Since childhood I’ve carried a camera. I’ve always been fascinated with the minutia of this city, those details that few notice: shapes, colors, light, broken windows, architectural and design quirks and the strange visual synergy of so many cultures on one tiny river island.It has been my habit for many decades to occassionally spend a very private and spiritual Saturday roaming some corner of Manhattan, using my camera to capture a reflection in a puddle, the intense juxtaposition of colors and architectural styles on a street corner or sometimes a funny moment in someone’s life. The experience has always been very private and a very special few hours allowing personal reflection and a very special kind of connection with my hometown.

I rushed out this morning, Saturday, January 20 simply because it was the coldest morning of the winter, a winter that has been bizarrely and constantly warm, warm enough to keep my seasonal hay fever active far beyond November. A crystal clear frigid Saturday morning would surely deliver funny coats and hats and wonderful games of light and color. Between taxis and my feet, I covered parts of the Financial District, Chinatown, Little Italy, Soho, Noho and Union Square. But for the first time in my life there were many parts of these neighborhoods that I could no longer cover and where my camera and I were no longer welcome. I was tempted to post my photograph so that you could determine for yourself just how much I resemble a threat to democracy and freedom–but that’s probably not wise. Suffice it to say that I am a 58-year-old very white, bald, Jewish, Gay New Yorker with a very neatly trimmed silver beard. I was wearing an $1,500 Italian dark green leather and fleece coat, a black cashmere scarf and a matching black pull on cashmere cap. I looked like your typical over-paid and perfectly stylish self-indulgent New Yorker on his way to or from a chic brunch. Today’s weapon of choice was my Canon Digital Elph with optical zoom.

However, to members of the New York City Police Department, several doormen and a couple of security guards, I looked like none of the above. I looked like a terrorist threat. Clearly, a lone man photographing details of buildings from various angles and wanting to enter lobbies of city landmarks to photograph cherubs, statuary and mosaics is now assumed to be a threat to the safety and security of our fair city.

I’m a photographer. I’m an artist. But such explanations no longer fly. I was denied entry to the lobby of the landmark and fantabulous Woolworth Building. I was asked for photo ID in front of a Soho luxury condo. Two of New York’s finest approached me in front of a Prince Street church and asked me to please “move on.” I explained who I was and what I was doing. The response was a second “please move on.” Two security guards asked me why I was photographing crowds shopping the stalls on Canal Street. Why is it any of their business, I asked? “Please move on.”

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Perhaps on my next outing I’ll rent a wife and a child to walk with me so that everyone just leaves me the hell alone. But the terrorists are probably already employing that ruse, so I might get shot.

The sad truth is in the details. How has 9/11, Homeland Security and George W. Bush changed our lives? Ask a guy who just likes to take pretty pictures for his own pleasure. Ask a guy who has lost the freedom to spend a Saturday by himself in the peace and beauty of his own world, a world that is now ridiculously interrupted by officious men in uniforms and requests for photo ID.

Photographing the details of Manhattan used to be a very enriching hobby, now it’s a awkward negotiation through a maze of uniforms. I know. It seems to be a small price to pay for our freedom. But this morning I found myself asking, “What freedom?”

You’ll find more examples of my freedom-threatening work here.

Art On-line Sales and Galleries

This past Tuesday I attended a lecture and discussion panel with three gallery owners who talked about how they got into the business, what they see their role and relationship to the artist is etc. Someone in the audience brought up Internet sales and did they work with artist who also sold their work on line.

If you are currently doing both, selling via your website and through a gallery, what are the agreements that you have in place with the gallery? Do you sell certain types of work on-line but not through the gallery?

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What do artists want in a website?


plein air landscape painting
Painting From Life vs. From Photos


If you are an artist, what kind of website do you want to have for your own use?

As an artist:

I think many artists would like to have some kind of combination of these (unrelated) things. The problem is that the off-the-shelf solutions such as WordPress or Blogger are not designed for artists’ needs. That is why a lot of us spend/waste a lot of time tinkering with our websites, to customize them for our specific goals.

Recently Rex brought something exciting to my attention, a new version of WordPress that allows one to host many blogs. That is to say, if someone designs a good artist website template, they can allow other people to create their own blogs with this template on demand, for free — much like you can already get a WordPress blog for free.

To be useful for many artists, such a system should address the various issues that artists consider in a website.

What do you want in an artist website? Can you give examples of sites that have good design features?

New pencil drawings

Here are the drawings I have been working on in the new year.

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