Letting Go with Style: Ben Grasso

Construction Proposal II Ben Grasso 2009 (via Phaidon)

Ben Grasso's paintings start as something whole - houses, sometimes tankers, cars or structured landscapes - and then let go into wood planks, shadows and shapes. Most often these things are being blown up or unhinged, as if someone were to introduce a tornado or disaster into the Americana landscape ideals of Winslow Homer.

Untitled (House) Ben Grasso 2006 (via I Heart My Art)

His images seem to straddle logic - or beg to be reconstructed with logic - but actually reveal pretty orderly painted relationships. For example even as unreal those houses pulling themselves apart into a cross sections may be in a literal sense, the pieces cast shadows, the walls and structures exist exactly in space.

It's where Ben Grasso decides with the paint that makes these images so interesting. Those planks of wood or explosive motions become strips of color - and the decisive choice colors making a form in space - become delicious. It doesn't matter after that what violent act surrounds those forms - although that just makes them even more interesting.

See also Ben Grasso's current exhibit at Thierry Goldberg Projects. Or see also Julie Mehretu who takes this into an entirely different abstract idea.

Building an Artist

Proposal for Train Jeff Koons

Greg.org examines Jeff Koon's CV (via C-Monster) and finds that things don't add up. Koon's legacy (perhaps like many large historical figures) seems to be blurred just by virtue of not having kept track of details. It seems Koon's mythological start on Wall Street might not be more than any other working artist's early days: a simple day job filling in the blanks. He didn't give up some million dollar career track.

Towards the end he mentions a fairly common artist trajectory:

...the very familiar arc of an emerging artist's career: art school; crap job at a museum; make crappy work; get a day job; friends with artists; failed starts with some dealers; sell a piece or two; go broke; get another day job; get in some group shows; which leads to a solo show. And the rest, we know.

Just out of school I think I was afraid to be called a painter if I hadn't been painting that morning. I was afraid I'd loose it. The reality, as a professor made clear years before, "You're lucky if you'll get 3 hours a week of painting in at first".