Monday, March 02, 2009

James Kalm's report on the 2008 Whitney Biennial, and a sketch of Robert Bechtle

Here's something that was brought to my attention recently, a link to James Kalm's 'undercover' report on the 2008 Whitney Biennial. Like artbusiness.com, which covers the San Francisco Bay Area gallery events, Kalm and his video camera brings us the happenings around NYC.

James Kalm's 'undercover report on the 2008 Whitney Biennal
(When he walks down to the third floor, is it just me... at first I thought the baby carriage was part of the show?)

As you might notice, Robert Bechtle's work is in the exhibition. As an undergrad I admired his painting, '60 T-bird, which hung at the UC Berkeley Art Museum. I took my first painting class from him in 1992. If you get a chance to check out his work, do so. His retrospective at the SFMOMA was one of the best shows I've seen there. His paintings capture an abstract quality and a level of depth that is very impressive. It is especially prevalent in his more recent paintings.

Coincidentally, a couple weeks ago I was going through some old sketchbooks and came across the sketch below.



Artbusiness.com
http://artbusiness.com/

James Kalm video reports
http://www.youtube.com/user/jameskalm