Interview

February 14, 2014, 8:41am

Material Concerns: Q&A with Mitzi Pederson

To say that JPEG images don’t do justice to Mitzi Pederson’s work at Ratio 3 (3:43, open through Saturday, February 15th) is a bit of an understatement. Her exploration of materials finds her once again working with tulle, a fine netting that is lightweight and translucent and seemingly fragile from up close -- good luck capturing that with your DSLR. Sculpturally, Pederson continues to work with simple arrangements of cinder blocks on the floor that are formally reminiscent of Carl Andre. On the walls her assemblages are clear references to painting -- squint your eyes enough and Pederson’s color palette might remind you of Monet’s Rouen Cathedral, step back and you’re sure to find a connection to Rebecca Morris’ whimsical abstractions. I recently had the chance to email Mitzi a few questions about her show, her materials, and her interest in painting. Her answers after the jump. -- Matt Smith Chavez, San Francisco Contributor

Mitzi Pederson | Untitled, 2014, Tulle, ink, 35 x 31 inches. Courtesy of Ratio 3

January 29, 2014, 10:30am

Through the Rabbit Hole: An American Arts Writer in Melbourne

Last week, Lauren Gallow and I wrote about our adventures in and our emerging philosophies behind exploring the art world via Instagram in Art & Instagram: Falling Down the Rabbit Hole. And fortunately, one of my recent travel adventures began with lazy bedtime falls down the Insty rabbit hole and ended with two wonderful studio visits in Melbourne, Australia…

LEFT: Ghostpatrol, Wall mural collaboration with Sean Morris, November 2013, Brisbane. Courtesy of the artist. RIGHT: Lucas Grogan, THE CONSTELLATION 2013 ink, acrylic and enamel on archival matt board 100 x 100cm.  Courtesy of the artist.

I had been planning a holiday in Australia for over a year, but it only occurred to me a few months prior that I might want to start exploring Aussie artists on Instagram.  Luckily, I had already been following a couple and from there, my Insty-Aussie-artist network expanded exponentially.  This was also about the same time that Gallow and I began tracking and recording our Instagram feeds, forays, and falls (mostly through screenshots of artists we were feeling big time).

The month before my trip, I began looking up some of my favorite local artists, to see if they had any current shows, and to more seriously immerse myself in their work via gallery and personal websites.  Shortly, I was able to contact two of my favorites to arrange studio visits while I was in Melbourne.  – Ellen C. Caldwell, Los Angeles Contributor

January 19, 2014, 2:39pm

The Relativity of Black: Q&A with Vincent Como

We’re all familiar with Spinal Tap’s ruminations on the color black. In this memorable scene of the mockumentary This is Spinal Tap, the band gathers around their manager as he reveals the jacket cover for their new album, Smell the Glove. There’s no text or any other adornment on it. It’s simply black -- understated and confusing for a 1980s hair band. “You can see yourself on both sides. It’s like a black mirror,” a bewildered bassist mutters. “Well, I think it looks like death. It looks like mourning,” complains the singer. “There’s something about this that's so black. It’s like ‘how much more black could this be?’ And the answer is none. None more black,” observes Nigel, the lead guitarist.

It’s all rather comical. But it’s also kind of profound -- black is death, black is the absence of anything else, black is mystifying, black is stupid. Ad Reinhardt, who was the “black monk” of the New York School, may have agreed most with Spinal Tap’s guitarist. For Reinhardt black was purely an aesthetic-intellectual pursuit and hence the negation of all symbolic meaning -- “none more black,” as Nigel put it. Color, on the other hand, is always making assertions and striving for meaning, and in that sense, Reinhardt added, “it may be vulgarity or folk art or something like that.” -- Matt Smith Chavez, San Francisco Contributor

Vincent Como | The Temptation to Exist 002, 2013. Acrylic on Canvas with Wooden Shelf. 66 x 5 x 7 inches

October 01, 2013, 8:00am

A Landscape of Industry: An Interview with Nina Elder

If you’re like me, you probably drive past them all the time and never give a second thought: cell towers, radio antennas, power lines, fracking structures and electrical substations–all part of a larger infrastructure that we rely on to connects us to a variety of systems and grids to sustain life as we know it. Santa Fe-based artist Nina Elder (#96) has been documenting the intersections of the natural and man-made in the American landscape for more than a decade. In her most recent body of work, Power Line, currently on view through October 25^th at the Inpost Artspace in Albuquerque, Elder continues her thoughtful examination of our relationship with these architectural oddities through the lens of landscape painting. I recently caught up with Nina to ask her a few questions about her work. – Claude Smith, Albuquerque/Santa Fe Contributor

Nina Elder | Hawthorne Munitions Depot, 2012, acrylic on panel, 48 x 60 inches; image courtesy of the artist