the-curatorial

[the-curatorial]

Study + Pokemon (Blue Ridge Parkway, North Carolina)

[the-curatorial]

Hi, with the idea that there should be a central place from information on Rothko shows and eventually a worldwide database of Rothkos in collections, I've secured a website which is not up yet but will be in progress for a while. This will be daillyrothko.com

In addition, I'd like have a mailing list for occasional Rothko news because my experience is that people don't regularly check websites.

So if you would like to get the occasional email with information on exhibitions or new writing or general news on all things Rothko, shoot me an email address at dailyrothko@gmail.com. Only Rothko related material will be emails, I'm not trying to conquer the world or anything.

I can also help you with general questions here of course but email can be useful for lots reasons. I recently sent out articles form my archive to someone doing a research paper on Rothko, for instance. Also if you don't want to be on the list, maybe save this email in case I go down. Tumblr has been known to just delete people.

In the meantime, if you'd like to donate I am currently hemorrhaging money, but I am sure all of you are too! I loathe asking for anything but I put it out there, hopefully to do more with cataloging and bringing information to people.

Thanks

[the-curatorial]

March 2024 Opportunities: Open Calls, Residencies, and Grants for Artists

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Cybèle Varela — The Passage (oil on canvas, 1988)

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I just wrote a thousand word assignment about this illustration, which I am completely, insufferably, unironically in love with.

It's a representation of an overhead view of a specific performance by the band Joy Division that was created as a print for a fundraising collection commissioned by an artist-run gallery.

It is doing *SO FUCKING MUCH* with a bunch of circles and a line that I kind of want to scream.

It's a totally static image. It's made of two shapes. It's made of two colors. Everything is a binary (everything is *DIVIDED*).

Except that if you look at it for thirty seconds there's an optical illusion that creates motion and more lines that aren't there. And if you look at it then start glancing at different parts of it the sharp contrast of black and white creates afterimages that make the little circles of the audience sway.

It's two values at the extreme ends of the spectrum, except that your brain fills it in. It's two shapes (line and dot) except that the circles make a square and the circles make a diamond and the line makes a rectangle.

It's perfectly balanced if you cut it in half vertically but the weight at the top of the image overwhelms the piece. It's perfectly balanced but the isolation of the band at the bottom makes them stand out and take up more space.

The dots are all the same size but the space around the dots at the bottom makes them bigger, more prominent; they aren't at a grander scale but they exist in a grander scale. But they are dwarfed by the crowd.

The band is the subject of the piece. The crowd is the subject of the piece. You look at the band because they are highlighted and isolated but can't help looking back to the mass of the audience again and again, overwhelmed by the weight. You look at the band and you see the crowd. You look at the crowd and get lost in it. The *performance* is the subject of the piece, both the crowd and the band.

It's circles and lines. It's abstract to the point of absurdity, looking more like a math problem than anything else.

And then you read the title and think about it for a few seconds and maybe need to sit down and scream.

[the-curatorial]

1-Helen Frankenthaler, Reef, 1991 Acrylic on canvas 33 3/4 x 82 3/4 inches (113.7 x 210.2 cm) 2- Mark Rothko, Sketch for the Harvard Murals, 1961

[the-curatorial]

Fucken Lighthouse 1. Marker on A3

[the-curatorial]

Artush Voskanyan

Pacitfication, 2015, oil on canvas, 60x80 cm

[the-curatorial]

Unknown, Dancing Fox, Edo period, 18th century, ivory with staining, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Raymond and Frances Bushell Collection

[the-curatorial]

The Rip XXV

Watercolor on paper, 7x9”

2024

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small artists

[the-curatorial]

The only details I could find on a curspry search for this artist were from auction sites-- there's the direct source link above, and a brief biography here:

I'm tagging this work for 1940s and 1950s, as that seems like the most likely years for it's creation

Two Bulls. Paper, graphite pencil. Georgy Evlampievich Nikolsky (1906-1973)

MutualArt

[the-curatorial]

Leonardo Cremonini (Italian-French, 1925-2010)

Behind desire (Alle spalle del desiderio), 1966

Acrylic on canvas

[the-curatorial]

No kidding!

Hi! Long time sci-fi fan (read old man). Do you think you could find the original dust cover art for J. G. Ballard's book, The Crystal World," and post it, please? I remember thinking it the most oddly beautiful piece when I first saw it, but it's been decades ago, and it still retains a space in my head. Thanks so much!

Yeah, here it is! It's from 1966, by German surrealist Max Ernst:

I actually indirectly referenced this cover in the opening pages of my book on 70s sci-fi art -- after Richard Powers started the trend of surrealist science fiction cover art in the 50s, a lot of other publishers jumped on it, and some went as far as to get fine artists like Ernst rather than illustrators. Good eye, it's really a standout cover!

[the-curatorial]

Imants Tillers (Australia, 1950 - ) Kangaroo Blank, 1988 oilstick, gouache, synthetic polymer paint 78 canvas boards, nos. 16231 - 16308 installation 213.0 (h) x 195.0 (w) cm

[the-curatorial]

"Evening In Blue"

Mark Grantham, Canadian

acrylic on canvas

[the-curatorial]

Study -- violet/green/gold

Madrid, Spain -- 12/19/10