VT (for all of my design-obsessed peeps)

Maman Peeps, It's the last day of the BIG BANG ART/PEEP SHOW and the featured artist is Louise Bourgeois.  I was fortunate to view her works at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in an exhibition entitled "The Locus of Memory,"  and later saw beautiful little prints of her 'Spider' series hung at the now shuttered Manfred Baumgartner Gallery on 7th Street NW.  For artists, art-lovers, cronies and poseurs, Baumgartner Gallery was the peak of both art-exhibition and art-chic--at least as we then knew it to be.  Manfred maintained a pristine all-white gallery perfect for the display of 'serious' art;  he showed an enviable list of local (regional to be more precise), national and international artists whose works were always featured on the pages of the expensive art magazines; in solo shows and group exhibitions held in New York, London, and cities in Germany, Italy and France; as well as featured in the design monthlies when articles ran about wealthy art...

Figure in Movement photo courtesy of Tate Gallery, London Peeps, It's day four of the BIG BANG ART/PEEP SHOW and the featured artist is the late Irish painter, Francis Bacon. I admit that I am drawn to a strange, savage beauty of which Bacon excels; his solitary figures are distorted/contorted/anguished/ agonized/featureless/armless/ legless/objectified/ subjectified/isolated/exposed/ riveting/restless/doomed/ damned.  And in viewing them, I feel caught somewhere between insanity and the sun. Enjoy (or at least respect the beast (within all of us)). Shane Anne Marie D. Lee wrote on occasion of his exhibition at the Met entitled Francis Bacon: A Century Retrospective, {that}  Most artists are deliberately abstruse when it comes to expressing their thoughts, filling the canvas with impenetrable abstractions or hidden symbolism. Not Francis Bacon. As an exiting observer remarked on her way out of this grimly exhilarating show, “He has something to say, and he’s sayin...

Midnight Sun II, 1982 The centre of the composition is occupied by three figures surrounded by a multitude of eyes-sailboats.  The first one is blindfolded; the second, in a frontal position, look ahead; the third one has feminine traits, faces backwards, and looks behind.  It is a free re-interpretation of the allegory of Prudence, seen as the ability of the present to learn from the past and act well in order not to spoil the future.  The title of the work relates to a passage of the XI book of The Golden Ass by Apuleius, whose protagonist Lucius tells that he reached the borders of death and saw the sun shine a candid light on midnight. photo courtesy of Donna Regina Foundation, Naples, Italy   Peeps, It's day three of the BIG BANG ART/PEEP SHOW and the featured artist is FRANCESCO CLEMENTE.  Sexy, mysterious, elegiac, wondrous, and magical are words as well as the emotions I experience in viewing Clemente's paintings and water-colors.  Not unli...

Nuestra Senora de las Iguanas, Juchitan, Oaxaca 1979 photo courtesy of Throckmorton Fine Art, NYC Peeps, Today is the day two of the BIG BANG ART/PEEP SHOW, and the featured artist is Mexican photographer Graciela Iturbide. Mysterious, riveting, and sometimes surreal in her depiction of the magic and tragedy which is Mexico.  Seemingly outside of time the country stands poised--awaiting a promised change.  Although ancient and contemporary prophecy herald doom/destruction/decay, within the collective hearts of the motherland hope abounds.  Hopeful as well as stubborn, stoic, proud, passionate, purposeful, gentle, guarded, fertile, and on occasion quixotic:  all traits witnessed in my father, a son of Mexico and in his heart, born of the jaguar.  Ancient yet modern; reaching forward to a future with eyes looking to the past, and unable (or unwilling) to realize a peaceful/prosperous/ egalitarian present.  Mexico is simultaneously a history ...

William Willis' Krait Crates (2002-06); acrylic/gouache/ink/pencil/collage element on rag paper, photo courtesy of Howard Scott Gallery Peeps, As promised, this week's peep show is devoted to ART, and more specifically to artists whose work I find endlessly fascinating, challenging, elusive, and desirable.  The artists selected for our BIG BANG ART/PEEP SHOW are namely: William Willis, Francis Bacon, Graciela Iturbide, Francesco Clemente, and Louise Bourgeois. Enjoy the show, and remember to keep your seat-belts fastened at all times. Shane (The Peep-Master) Back in 1990's I was doing the art thing and slumming from gallery to gallery on 1st, 2nd or 3rd Thursday--who really remembers the 90's anyway, or wants to!!  After-hours parties abounded with cheap wine, stale crackers, dried cheese best left alone, and the smell of reefer hovered over outdoor balconies like wet blankets.  The Crow Bar off 20 and K street NW reigned supreme; stiff drinks were pretty che...

photocourtesyofcotedetexasblogspot Peeps, It's the last day of the work week, and the final day devoted to 'objects of desire.'  Books, magazines, newspapers have all played a prominent role in my life and thus, without any hesitation, they are nominated for the final spot on our list of O/Ds.  The joy that is derived here is two-fold; first the visual pleasure that is experienced from the book's cover (the graphics, the art, the colors and so forth; similar concerns are central to a newspaper's visual appeal, in which aesthetics, a context, a history is at play; plainly speaking, a voice all of its own and distinct from that of the novel, magazine, or bi-monthly scientific journal can be heard (and seen).  After, we can address the contents (or content) through which perhaps the entire civilizations of both East and West have transmitted knowledge, shared ideas, created dynasties, shaped history, demarcated heaven and earth, and fostered the concept...

Peeps, This week's theme is 'objects of desire,' and it's day four; with great pleasure I present children's toys, and more specifically windup toys.  I have always been attracted to toys with wheels, or toys that are mechanical and thus have movement in the form of skipping/jumping/gliding/ running/turning/zooming/ zipping and so forth.  We can all remember as kids we had a little wooden horse that made a click-click-clack sound as it was pulled by our eager hand(s) across the floor and invariably onto the rug where we quickly realized that the sound was absent, and so back onto a hard surface where the click-click-clack sound resumed and again delighted our impressionable minds.  Interestingly, I still love that sound and whenever I find myself in the company of these delightful objects (in a home with children, or in a toy-store which offers the charming and lovingly hand-made models that I remember from my childhood, or scavenging the basement...