Hansel and Gretal

I'm going away for a month so there will be no more posts here until after December first. Therefore I wanted to present one last large display of recent drawings which happen to tell the story of Hansel and Gretal. There is a text which accompanies these images, but to read that text you will have to come to the Art Book Fair at PS1 in Queens next week and purchase a copy of the book, or read it there while I stare at you. Many thanks.

The Face of California

As if the European Americans of the North hadn’t already stolen half of Mexico in 1848, this Pale Grey-Skinned Corporate Whore (not in fact a gender specific insult, thank you) would have Californians steal the Land from those who have come here to reclaim and actually make use of it. She proposes that as our “Fiscally Responsible Governor” she will send all the Trespassers packing. Well, she can start with herself. If our State is in some sort of mess it is a Mess of Her and Her Kind’s Making. It is an Economic Mess brought on by Corporate Thievery and her Policies will only add to “Our Debt.” That she is a Liar of Corporate Proportions almost goes without saying. Her Hypocrisy in dealing with her Former Housekeeper, whom she sacked after Nine Years of Service because she suddenly saw that it wouldn’t be consistent with her Platform, is typical of her Class and her Politics. No doubt this Person of Privilege believes that her Character and Face best represent the State she has come all the way from Long Island to live in. The Reader must ask herself: is this our Collective Face? However one may come to reason with oneself concerning the Legal Arguments surrounding the Sticky Issue of Immigration, one must acknowledge that there is something decidedly wrong going on when those whose Ancestors have inhabited this Area for the Last Fifteen Thousand Years are told they don’t belong on this Land by one who has lived here less than Thirty Years. Whose Faces are we seeing here?




To whom do these Faces belong, where do these Faces belong, and who or what will decide? How about if you decide for a Change? How unusual would that be? In a Time where all of our Decisions seem to be made for us beforehand would it be wrong to consider the Matter at Hand? Who belongs Here?

The Naked Photographer

Here's a few paintings from an old series I've always thought of as The Naked Photographer. These come from 1996. I'm able to date them from the mural that appears behind one of the figures. It's from that downtown restaurant I was paid to embellish with my work, a series of murals based on Greek vase paintings. The young man, pictured in the fifth portrait down, was a pizza cook at the time. He was from Jalisco, and the owner of the restaurant consulted him repeatedly on the installation of the ovens.






My good friend Max told me of going to dinner at a house in Philadelphia, belonging to a former co-worker from Printed Matter Inc., in a surprisingly formal dining room, and encountering these two old paintings I made of myself and Rogelio at opposite sides of the room facing each other in matching gilt frames. I believe this kind woman paid ten times more for their framing than she did for the portraits. This was not the fate I had envisioned for them, but I can't say that I'm disappointed.

Tres Retratos de Edgar

Here are three portraits of Edgar taken over a period of five years, the last from ten years ago. He has been one of those models I've turned to again and again and I hope I shall have many more years of working with him (and his image.) I placed these pictures here now because I felt a little color was needed before presenting some more black and white drawings, and because they are among the most beautiful and yet "artless" images I've produced. This also happens to be his thirty-seventh birthday.

Gotham News Boy

These are more drawings related to de Kooning, or specifically to a particular painting he made in 1955: Gotham News. I suppose I'm trying to draw a connection between Bill's use of news imagery in his torn up fashion and the tearing up of actual bodies (young, desirable and economically strapped) in the "Korean Conflict," which was still fairly recent, and the promotion of American Art for propaganda purposes during the then ongoing "Cold War."




This final drawing in the series is called: Each Death Tears Me Up, which is a quote from the General pictured in the background, made during the height of the recently "ended" Iraq War.

Willem and Arshile

So here are those drawings I mentioned in the previous post (prefaced by one of my favorite early photos of Bill.) Perhaps one needs to know more about de Kooning and Gorky to understand the distortions and connections I'm making and how they relate to the artists' works and lives. I'm sorry I can't lay everything out for the viewer; but for me much of the beauty of art has to do with what it forces me to look for and where that search leads me.

King Bill's Heroic Period

Woman I

Woman II

Woman III

Woman IV

Woman V

Woman VI

Before displaying a series of drawings I made a few years ago concerning Willem de Kooning (and a fantasy revolving around his friendship with Arshile Gorky,) I thought it would be best to show some of his best paintings (or at least those from the period when I believe he was doing his best.)

Easter Monday

Composition

Gotham News

Luis Alberto de Peru

Again I have drawn from the well of self-posted personal pictures for the images I'm now presenting. These have undergone some slight enhancement but are by and large shown as found. Here you have one Luis Alberto de Peru showing as much as he dared on a site whose name when translated into English is Private Photos. You are encouraged and welcome to seek it out at your earliest convenience if you are looking for adventurous Americanos del Norte y Sur.