patrick brennan – Page 20

Iron Claw of Memory

Bern Nix April 2015 [spacer height=”40px”] CHURCH GOING [spacer height=”20px”] Some things never seem to elude the rusty iron claw of memory. They are indelibly engraved in every aspect of Your being with or without a madeleine. Toledo, Ohio. St. Anne’s Parish. Grades 1 thru 8. The fifties. Father Springer, a tall thin, grumpy, bespectacled… Continue reading Iron Claw of Memory

Basil King: Mirage

patrick brennan April 2015 [spacer height=”60px”] < Not everything can go into One painting one poem Not everything can go into One painting one poem Basil King [spacer height=”20px”] Among context invoking in-betweens such as essays, interviews, reviews and descriptions, it’s not that often that an artist can be so influentially positioned to shape these… Continue reading Basil King: Mirage

OPEN CHAPTER

[spacer height=”1px”] Ubadiah Bey McConner Ra’maatubadahhotep March 2015 [spacer height=”10px”] Afterwords by Michael Carey & patrick brennan [spacer height=”30px”] African Omnidevelopment Space Complex / We New Writing Black Out Loud 1939-1959 Saturday, November 11, 1939, sixteen minutes after high noon, at precisely 12:16 pm, I came into this existence on the Southside of Pontiac, Michigan… Continue reading OPEN CHAPTER

SILENCE IS NOT ENOUGH

Yuko Otomo March 2015 [spacer height=”20px”][spacer height=”20px”][spacer height=”20px”][spacer height=”20px”] [spacer height=”20px”] SILENCE IS NOT ENOUGH (FOR SUZAN FRECON) [spacer height=”20px”] earth red terra verde ultra marine indigo blue matte or gloss silence is not enough I stand in a room full of muted light * je pense je suis on me pense JE est un… Continue reading SILENCE IS NOT ENOUGH

Three Correlations:
OUT & / or IN

Otomo – Hughes – Silv February 2015 [spacer height=”20px”][spacer height=”20px”] Outsider Art Yuko Otomo 1. terminology What makes “in?” What makes “out?” Outside of something & inside of the “same” something. What separates something into the two? Inside of some framed/circled/segregated/fenced condition or space seen from the outside & outside of the same something seen… Continue reading Three Correlations:
OUT & / or IN

Macho Meal Breakfast of Champions

patrick brennan February 2015 [spacer height=”20px”][spacer height=”20px”] I’d chosen to avoid checking out Damien Chazelle’s film Whiplash not just because of its almost sinister title, but because “jazz” and conservatoire in combination still feel so oxymoronic to me (must be a generational thing or something, as the combination now seems to play so de rigueur… Continue reading Macho Meal Breakfast of Champions

Unraveling Vivian Maier

[spacer height=”1px”] Donald Martineaw-Vega January 2015 [spacer height=”20px”][spacer height=”40px”] Self-Portrait, undated [spacer height=”20px”] Vivian Maier: In Her Own Hands Howard Greenberg Gallery October 30 – December 31 [spacer height=”20px”] When I was in photography school, we had an assignment to go out and photograph life, what you saw in front of you, and to engage… Continue reading Unraveling Vivian Maier

E Pluribus Plures:
El Anatsui

patrick brennan January 2015[spacer height=”40px”] El Anatsui’s gawu constructions (wu + ga : “garment” + “made of metal”), recently visible at both the Jack Shainman and Mnuchin galleries, feel very social to me. They don’t feel univocal. Even though these pieces derive from the decisions of a single artist, the vision doesn’t seem solitary. It’s… Continue reading E Pluribus Plures:
El Anatsui

Verdes Carne, Pelo Negro . . .

patrick brennan February 2015 [spacer height=”40px”] The Black Atlantic¹ graces the opening of Carlos Suara’s 2010 film (although just recently shown here in NYC) Flamenco, Flamenco on contemporary flamenco — not at all his first film on the music. The camera, in the hands of cinematographer Vittorio Storaro, at times behaves with the finesse, wit… Continue reading Verdes Carne, Pelo Negro . . .

In the Mix

Dan Joseph December 2014 [spacer height=”20px”][spacer height=”20px”][spacer height=”20px”] In this new section we’re opening the space for “public discourses” on shared topics, concerns or ideas. Revitalizing the tradition of “soap box” discussion, we’re going to be inviting various individuals to voice their minds to inspire further discussions among us. We all live in extremely complicated… Continue reading In the Mix

Oijen, Wybe, Dele, Tomma Abts

patrick brennan November 2014[spacer height=”40px”] Tomma Abts (at David Zwirner from September 10th through October 25th) dispenses with the quotation marks seemingly placed so often around a good amount of contemporary “painting” in a way that humbles. The exhibit of eight modestly scaled 48x38cm oil & acrylic canvasses and seven color pencil drawings on paper… Continue reading Oijen, Wybe, Dele, Tomma Abts

Post-Game Commentary

Basil King September 2014 [spacer height=”40px”]Park Slope Pastoral 1982 – 83. Martha was working at Sloan-Kettering. I came along with the staff to Shea Stadium to see a ball game. Hot Dogs, Hamburgers, French Fries, Beer, Cokes, Pepsi. The docs, nurses, administrators and the rest of the staff all sat in the bleachers. The… Continue reading Post-Game Commentary

Time Outside

[spacer height=”0.1px”]patrick brennan May 2014 [spacer height=”20px”] The Music of the Temporalists (by “André Pogoriloffsky”) Contributes to the Musics Beyond the Clock — — — — and What about Rhythm? [spacer height=”10px”] In the beginning of this year, I received a very formally worded e-mail from out of nowhere entitled Book on Musical Time Theory.[spacer… Continue reading Time Outside

Hands in Transit

[spacer height=”20px”][spacer height=”20px”] With composition, you have your inspired moment, and then you have inspired moments along the way as you compose. But you also have the opportunity to change your composition, in any way, at any time. With improvisation, you never have this opportunity. When you genuinely improvise—spontaneously—you don’t even guide the improvisation, by… Continue reading Hands in Transit

Volta at Mercer

[spacer height=”20px”] An independent gallerist explained to me that the growing financial imperative to participate in art fairs relates, at least partially, to diminishing foot traffic in the physical galleries themselves. Among art fairs, Volta stands out for the human scale of its presentation with each gallery (often a small, one person operation) showing only… Continue reading Volta at Mercer

Tone

[spacer height=”10px”]Jennie C. Jones Out of the corner of my eye, I thought I was looking at just another instance of still more minimalism, an artistic predisposition toward which I’ve always felt some ambivalence – whether the fundamentalist pin striped suits of early Stella or The Platonic Republic of Judd. After decades of seeing… Continue reading Tone

Material Poet

patrick brennan February 2014 [spacer height=”20px”] I still remember seeing years back a sculpture by Nicholas Mukomberonwa that, except for a single chiseled dent about 3/4 of the way up a vertical edge, presented nothing but otherwise untouched polished stone. I felt whisked by its peculiarly visceral numinosity and presence. Even an airtight cognitive… Continue reading Material Poet

Lester Afflick: I Dream About You Baby

[spacer height=”20px”] Eser Atilla-Gonzalez February 2014 [spacer height=”60px”] Lester Afflick book reading (NYC) I Dream About You Baby (posted Februry 2014)

The Way of Butch Morris

Butch Morris was an original, a completely original thinker, a maverick. He was many other things – musical genius, sympathetic, understanding friend, bon vivant, fashion connoisseur, romantic, rogue, but what I will remember most about him was his originality. That was his most important lesson to us, I believe. Be yourself. Sing your own melody… Continue reading The Way of Butch Morris

Curating my Refrigerator

Sparrow February 2014 [spacer height=”20px”] I’ve begun to curate my refrigerator, possibly as a result of being trapped indoors during the Catskills winter. My first “show” consists of a large postcard (7″ x 10″) from the current exhibition at the Sperone Westwater Gallery, on the Bowery in New York. It’s a detail of “Red Gas”… Continue reading Curating my Refrigerator

Music Where Musicians Set the Criteria & Decide Whether it Meets those Criteria

[spacer height=”20px”] On Joe Morris’ Perpetual Frontier: The Properties of Free Music [spacer height=”20px”] The art of sound, music, is neither easy to write nor read about, the irony being that it’s such an intimate and vivid experience for so many, so palpable, that the digital linearity of language, no matter how necessary, forges an… Continue reading Music Where Musicians Set the Criteria & Decide Whether it Meets those Criteria

The Most Human Sensitive Electronic Instrument You’ve Never Heard Of

[spacer height=”20px”] Caroline Martel’s Film, Wavemaker [spacer height=”20px”] Maurice Martenot (1898 – 1980), the cello prodigy middle child of a music saturated Parisian family, was working as a military telegraph operator during the First World War and heard a musical instrument that didn’t yet exist amid the wandering tweets and whistles of his radio apparatus.… Continue reading The Most Human Sensitive Electronic Instrument You’ve Never Heard Of

Vivan los Independientes:
Ze Couch Cooks your Ear a Good Meal

[spacer height=”0.1px”] patrick brennan January 2014 [spacer height=”20px”] Music continues to find some pretty wily means of persisting, no matter how tough things can get for the musicians it depends on. Just when you think it might all be over, something else happens anyway. DIY is usually hailed as a punk invention, but musician efforts… Continue reading Vivan los Independientes:
Ze Couch Cooks your Ear a Good Meal

Walking the Serra Torque

patrick brennan December 2013 [spacer height=”20px”] It really fascinates me that Richard Serra’s “rusted metal wall” was publicly flogged out of Federal Plaza for how it disturbed people because this same artist’s work, for me, feels so amazingly sympathetic, even simpático. The sculptures seem to exude out of a powerfully committed trust in sensory experience… Continue reading Walking the Serra Torque