Robert Jackson’s Love, War & Peace

12 April 2011
by Terri Ciccone

Imagine a world where pink and blue balloon animals battle, turning nearly every object into a violent weapon of mass destruction. A world where red apples and green apples take each other captive, threatening each other with lethal rolls of masking tape, flaming match sticks and wooden toy airplanes. It sounds ridiculous, but artist Robert Jackson doesn’t think it so far from a representation of the truth. “Most things in life I get a laugh out of, it’s kind of ridiculous, the fights we have,” said the artists. “It really is silly to break it down to a read apple vs. a green apple, I mean basically they’re both apples. One’s red one’s green, yet for some reason they’ve chosen to dislike each other, and it really looks silly when you put it on canvas.”

Jackson is talking about thetheme of his current show at Gallery Henoch, “From Ridiculous to Sublime.” However when walking into the gallery, one doesn’t immediately grasp these heavy war themes. The paintings seem colorful, relatable and fun. Soda crates, soft pretzels, milk and cookies, balloon animals, cakes, watermelons and apples are the objects brightly personified in the show. “[The soda crates] are Americana, they’re just brightly colored empty calories and sugar, and have really funny words and I enjoyed them” added Jackson. “That’s what shows up in a lot of my paintings, those childhood pieces of Americana, blocks and balloon dogs and cakes, the warm fuzzies, the things we all remember and attribute some type of love for.”

After revealing that he actually physically sets up all of the scenarios his edible warriors and other characters find themselves in, one can only imagine Jackson’s studio space. After choosing to edit out some of the ropes, tape, and an eye hook or ten that keep the figures in place, Jackson creates a version of a still life that is anything but traditional, and anything but still. “About six or seven years ago I made a pact with myself that I wouldn’t do just your typical still life, that I would always paint conceptually, with an idea behind it,” added the creator. “I started painting still life as a hobby and I loved it but still life can get really boring. I like the idea of the sculptural quality of still life, it’s not like looking at a landscape, I get to make a sculpture and then immortalize it, paint it on canvas.”

Robert Jackson’s show is a whimsical feast for the eye. It is a silly and colorful take on the objects that plague our childhood innocence. War and fighting are ridiculous, balance is sublime. War is as silly as a red apple and a green apple in a food fight, and balance is as simple as milk and cookies, yet this balance is so hard to find. “People keep asking me ‘how long are you going to keep painting food fights?’” Jackson smiled. “Well gosh how long are we going to keep being in wars?”

Terri Ciccone is the founder and editor of Contrapposto Blog and an Art Ruby contributor

Luxe Condo!

26 January 2011
by Art Rubynstein

There are few notable events happening around the world these day: Sundance in Utah, award shows in Hollywood, and couture season in Paris. And yet, George Condo’s “Mental States” exhibition opening at New Museum and the dinner that followed certainly held its own. Condo attracted big names and some major momentum gains last night. Here’s a recap.

Condo’s most devoted fan: Kanye West, who flew in for the opening from Chicago despite dealing with the sorrow from the Bears elimination from the playoffs. But Condo did the art for the West’s last album and the Grammy winner told us he wouldn’t miss it for the world.

Condos most devoted fan (runner up): Marc Jacobs who flew in from his own show from Paris on Friday and the attendance at New Museum was one of his priorities with best friend Lorenzo Martone.

Power man faces in the crowd: John Currin, Jerry Saltz, Adam Weinberg, Richard Prince, Tony Shafrazi, Bill Powers, Klaus Biesenbach, and Julian Schnabel.

While Elizabeth Olsen is dominating Sundance…Mary Kate Olsen was busy checking out every painting at the museum.

Most popular dinner item: Fries that went fast at Balthazar that were quickly downed with champagne.

Photos – Nicholas Hunt / PatrickMcMullan.com

The Real Van Gogh At The Royal Academy of Arts

19 January 2010
by Art Rubynstein

On January 23, 2010, the Royal Academy of Arts will stage a landmark exhibition of the work of Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890). The focus of the exhibition will be the artist’s remarkable correspondence. Over 35 original letters, rarely exhibited to the public due to their fragility, will be on display in the main galleries of Burlington House, together with around 65 paintings and 30 drawings that express the principal themes to be found within the correspondence. Thus the exhibition will offer a unique opportunity to gain an insight into the complex mind of Vincent van Gogh. This will be the first major Van Gogh exhibition in London for over forty years.

In addition to lending almost all the letters in the exhibition, the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, has made available twelve important paintings. Other major lenders include the Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, together with other museums and private collections worldwide.

Van Gogh was a compulsive and eloquent correspondent. The majority of his letters were written to his brother Theo, an art-dealer who supported Vincent throughout his difficult artistic career. Vincent also wrote to other family members, including his sister Wilhelmina. Other artists, notably Anton van Rappard, Emile Bernard and Paul Gauguin, were also, at different phases of Vincent’s life, recipients of his letters. The originality of his ideas about art, nature and literature, combined with his deep understanding of these subjects, make Van Gogh’s letters much more than a personal expression of feelings: they attain the status of great literature. In reading the letters one encounters not only a sensitive, determined and exceptionally hard-working man, but also someone possessed of a powerful intellect; this exhibition will challenge the view that Van Gogh was an erratic genius by allowing the viewer a rare insight into his artistic process through the intimate medium of his correspondence. Together the letters create a ‘self-portrait’, and reveal the ways in which Van Gogh defined himself as an artist and as a human being.

Taking the letters as its starting point, The Real Van Gogh: The Artist and His Letters will view the paintings and drawings from the perspective of the correspondence. The letter sketches that Van Gogh frequently used to show a work in progress or a completed work are a fascinating part of the correspondence, and many will be shown alongside the paintings or drawings on which they are based.

The Real Van Gogh: The Artist and His Letters, Royal Academy, London, Saturday to 18 April.