"Painting Non-ordinary Reality: A Long Look at Something You Can’t See"

by Elatia Harris
Any single image from the Accident series will freeze you where you stand. Motionlessly, you check yourself for parts and think, "Oh, that’s the thing, the thing that happened to me, even if no one sees it." The Water paintings, on the other hand, will dislocate you – you are pulled, plunged and buoyed, seeing up and through and down.

"The Accidental Purist: Kate Vrijmoet and the American Sublime"

by Daniel Kany
Vrijmoet, however, is not merely trafficking in conundrums and impossibilities. We know somehow that these images are real – even if they only play themselves out in our fears [...] In this sense, Vrijmoet is playing a dialectical game with the traumatic memory trace

      Now Available through CoCA and at Lulu.com
      Kate Vrijmoet: Essential Gestures
      Center on Contemporary Art Exhibition 2010 Catalog

I’ve been working very hard on a proposal for a curated space in Norway. The deadline is September 10th and I really only have this week to complete it since the girls are out of camp after this week. I was up until 2 AM this morning researching. I’m down a sitter. John’s working late (and got up at 5 AM) and I’m staying up late again tonight. I’m not writing this as a complaint or as a brag. I’m really into this project and I love working, its important to me to meet my goals, and I’m extremely competitive with myself. Since I have a lot on my plate and it keeps spreading (like my waistline) I just keep adding hours. It’s interesting to me that it’s easier to get things done in an organized and calm manner when John is working late and I’m home alone with the girls and have to feed them, take care of the animals, do the house work, put them to bed, get ready for the day tomorrow and still blog, answer emails, do marketing, plan for my painting tomorrow with Thomas, research, write, submit my show tags for a show deadline, and on.

I’ve been talking, writing, drawing and thinking, about and around this Norway show. It’s a conceptual show, and a performance as well, a bit. Stuff I love. It dovetails perfectly with my other work, even though you might not think so because it’s not painting. Recently I read a letter that made me realize I really have to put all of my design skills to use for this show to make it as pretty as I can in the amount of time I have with the budget I have (as long as beauty is what solves the problem best). Here is a large excerpt from this letter and a link to the book and the market where you can buy it.

“[...] these days, I have watched the galleries grow increasingly commercial. I have wondered why there have been no great defining movements in recent years as there had been in the past. The problem is that art these days is often designed to titillate or provoke, it is either aesthetics without ideas, or ideas without aesthetics. All too often, galleries are filled with art that is strange, or perhaps even beautiful, but dead, lacking the life blood of visceral ideas that empowers great art. On the other hand, museums have gone the other route, embracing conceptual protest art that, though highly ideological, has none of the visual appeal that traditionally softens the message to make the artist’s ideas palatable to the audience. [...] In good art I find serenity. Its ideas are questions asked softly in the back of your mind, and contemplated carefully. [...] And it is this silence the artist must respect, yet also overcome. This gulf between the artist, who is remote and unseen, and his viewer, is the greatest challenge of any form of communication. [...] An artist must intrigue his audience so that they will linger a little bit longer and ponder a little bit deeper. An artist must come softly across the silence of the gallery or museum halls, and sneak into the back of their mind so that while they thought they were just looking at something pleasing to the eye, suddenly there are thoughts churning up the placid surface of their subconscious. This is my definition of great art. [link to purchase book here]

This made me think about my Norway show proposal, “be careful, make sure you consider the visuals carefully with the concepts. Be purposeful in ALL things. Don’t forsake the physical for the ideological.” So, I was glad to have come across it. I think it’s Gideon’s grandson who wrote it. Could be wrong, it’s a little unclear to me. But I am going to order the book, or buy it directly from CoCA, they should have some available.