Writing About the Old; Gene Mirabelli on WAMC

Acclaimed novelist and beloved UAlbany professor emeritus Eugene Mirabelli (who reads on Tuesday) talked to WAMC's Joe Donahue about his most recent novel, Renato, the Painter: An Account of His Youth & His 70th Year in His Own Words.

Mirabelli says:  "I also wanted to write about someone who is old. Most novels it seems to me are about people in their 30s or 40s. At the time that I thought of the idea for this novel, I thought 70 was old. As it turns out now, I'm 11 years older than he is, and he seems like a young man."

Listen to the full interview here:  http://www.wamc.org/post/renato-painter

More about Mirabelli's visit with bestselling novelist Ann Hood:  http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/mirabelli_hood13.html

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Poet Peg Boyers on "Outing on the Hudson"

Peg Boyers, who reads tomorrow in Saratoga, offers poetic commentary on the 1850 painting
"Outing on the Hudson" (pictured here) by an unknown artist.

"Hardly native and far from naked, these dignified
loungers by the Hudson stroll in their Sunday best,
white as the lilies in the foreground, white
as the sails on the little boats below
navigating the river, white as the scentless smoke
pluming up from the passing steamboat. In this Sunday idyll...."

Read more in Slate.

Hear Boyers read the poem at the Tang Museum in Saratoga here.

Boyers will share the stage with major American fiction writer Ann Beattie, tomorrow, Thursday, July 19th, 8PM, Davis Audiorium, Palamountain Hall, 815 North Broadway, Saratoga. Free.

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Eugene Mirabelli in the TU

81-year-old novelist and UAlbany English professor emeritus Gene Mirabelli, the recent loss of his beloved wife and muse Margaret Black, his struggle with grief, and his new novel Renato the Painter are the subjects of a large profile on the front page of the Times Union's "Unwind" section.

Paul Grondahl writes:

"[Mirabelli] understands firsthand that life can change in an instant, whether in his own real-world experiences or the plot of his novels."  More.

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Dissing the Patrons of Art-- Bob Nickas 3/26

Bob Nickas, art critic who visits 3/26, has no problem biting the hand that feeds Art:

Wealthy and powerful people—and boring people, and famous people—use art and artists to legitimize themselves. Or they use culture to say, “Look how cultured I am. I gave all that money to the museum.” Or, “Look, I bought this painting for however many millions of dollars at that auction.” People in the art world, people around artists, they all do the same thing. They use art to advance themselves, to advance their careers, for fame, power, money, and all those things. The art world doesn’t function any differently from the business world, the banking world, the real estate world, the military, or politics. And all those people in banking and real estate? They’re all involved in art. And why are they involved in art? Because in banking and real estate, there are all these oversights. People can go to jail. People can pay fines. The art world is the only unregulated market of its kind. I mean, what are the other unregulated markets? Drugs, arms, and slavery? Prostitution and gambling? Art is the only white-collar, legitimized market that is completely unregulated. There are no penalties. The only thing that you’ll ever get caught for is tax evasion.

Read the interview with Jesse Pearson in Vice.

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See the Abstract Show Before Visit With Bob Nickas

You may wish to visit "Material Occupation," the UAlbany Art Museum's current exhibit on contemporary abstract art, in advance of a Bob Nickas's visit on Monday, March 26th.

The contrarian art critic and curator is widely regarded as America's leading authority on recent abstract art. He is also the author of the highly praised 2009 book, Painting Abstraction.

The reviewer for the San Francisco Chronicle called it, "a wild ride of a reference book.” The New York Times called it, “a lively survey… a useful tool in forming a sharper, broader sense of what is going on in the world of abstract painting.”

"Material Occupation" runs through April 7, 2012.

"The artists represented in Material Occupation challenge the idea that abstraction is a rarified concept that bears little relation to everyday experience. Using familiar patterns, structures, designs, and systems, these artists explore the cultural associations inherent in prosaic materials. Traditional art-making gestures are replaced by actions equated with manual labor, such as staining, pasting, bleaching, mending, stretching, taping, daubing, recycling, and tearing. Drawing on a wide range of materials and references, these artists apply a keen eye and a steady hand as they transform house paint, thread, old and newly woven fabric, industrial tape, and other ordinary materials into poetic abstract forms. The decorative, the contemplative, and the marginalized thus take precedence in work that proposes an alternative relationship to Modernist abstraction." More.

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Writing About Abstract Painting

Art critic and curator Bob Nickas, who visits on March 26, talks about the meaning of contemporary abstract painting in Art in America:

PENN: What is it about abstract painting that compels you to write about it today?

NICKAS: Ad Reinhardt once said that it's more difficult to write about abstract painting than any other kind of painting because it's content is not in its subject matter but in the actual painting activity. I agree, but you have to keep in mind that he wrote this in 1943. Abstract painting today often has a subject beyond itself. When Wayne Gonzales makes a painting that, seen up close, is a proliferation of overlaid gray dots and ovals, but from a distance coheres as an aerial view of the Pentagon, he offers an image of power and the war. When Steven Parrino mis-stretches a large expanse of metallic silver canvas and titles it Death in America, he's not simply offering the world another shiny monochrome. This is a work that reminds us of abstraction's privileged relation to language. The very same painting, given a neutral title, or untitled, is simply not the same painting. Reinhardt's text posits abstraction against illustration. To my mind, there is absolutely nothing compelling about illustration. We all make our choices.

Read the 2009 interview in Art in America magazine.

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Raising Renee Premieres Tonight on HBO 2/22/2012

If you missed our screening of Raising Renee back in October 2011 (and the talkback with Oscar-nominated filmmakers Steve Ascher and Jeanne Jordan), you can still catch the premiere on HBO 2 tonight at 8PM.

The story of acclaimed artist Beverly McIver and her promise to take her sister Renee (who is mentally disabled) when their mother dies — a promise that comes due just as Beverly's career is taking off.

"In a notable fusion of subject and film, the same themes that fuel the artist’s distinguished body of work—race, class, family, disability—propel this cinematic portrait. Both are a testament to the transformative power of art. " -- Full Frame

More.

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