weekend openings
craig paul nowak at the next step studioCan I get a holla for the leaning/floor canvas craze! Well, I wasn't able to get out last weekend for openings, but I had some spies helping out detroitarts! From the looks of the pics, I don't think craig has slept in the last year, wow that's a lot of work! From the looks of the pic above, craig is experimenting with presentation and concept for his portraits. There is something really off-putting yet intriguingly arrogant about an excessive number of self portraits, and I mean that in an interested way. The wall below feels very manic chuck close.
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stephanie sturton/andrew blake at the cass cafe--------
matt lewis at the b gallery
posted by art blogs are fun at 8:48 PM
22 Comments:
where is next step studio?
http://www.nextstepstudio.com/
Next Step Studio is on Hilton in Ferndale, between 8 and 9 mile, closer to 8 Mile on the east side of the street
Some of Craigs paintings look like digital art. Are they paintings of photoshop or illustrator images? Or are they prints?
That detail from Matt's painting is really beautiful
I am so glad that craig has learned to paint him self. Pretty soon he will be able to transfer one contour line of his face one each surface and just vomit inside the lines.
Maybe food, or mosaic could work as his next medium. These paintings suck -and fuck the painting leaning on the wall trick.
There was no digital work at Craig's show, unless you count the video. They were all paintings.
Ann, no thoughts or comments on their work? Nor photos of both artists work at Cass Cafe?
anonymous - can you read? ann was at a wedding. she didn't make it to those shows. if you want to complain about the coverage here, START YOUR OWN BLOG. maybe then you would leave your house once in a while and not rely on ann so much ... you could, you know, view the art in person! whoa.
people should go to Nextstep and support what they're doing there. They took a big leap giving Craig a one-man show, the first since it's conception, and I hear the owner even purchased the building nextdoor with plans to eventually turn the entire block into art galleries. I don't know if it's true, but a strip of galleries in Metro Detroit sounds like a good thing to me.
Kaiser Suidan is doing a fantastic job with Next Step Studio. He is sincere in his desire to assist artists.
When I went around to galleries that weekend, it was not lost on me that the three exhibition spaces visited were:
a Beauty Salon that shows art
a Ceramics studio also equipped to show art
a restaurant that shows art [Cass Cafe]
These "non-traditional" or "alternative art spaces" are opening up the dialogue and exposing new constituencies to the art. Craig's success is a good example of this.
Add these to all of the artist-run and cooperative galleries, and you have quite an interesting exhibition phenomenon. Check out the Art In America Gallery Guide when it comes out in August; you will see that the majority of exhibition spaces are like those I mentioned.
P.S.
To Anonymous 2.25 am.....
I knew that Ann was at a wedding, so I volunteered to get her some pics of those shows. Rather than bitch, why don't you go to the actual shows and see for yourself?
I would like to know what peoples thoughts were of the art at Cass Cafe, stephanie sturton and andrew blake. I understand that Ann was busy and could not make the opening, but I'm sure that some of you were there, or have seen the show since the opening. What are your thoughts?
I felt the exhibition was a great change of pace from the last one, even though I enjoyed the innuendo in that work.
The abstractions in this show were intriguing. The claligraphic marks seemed to spell out actual words, or at least they led the viewer in that direction. I might suggest that in the future the lighter valued pieces have a darker frame or something to set them off from the walls, which were also light. The smaller works seemed more pointed than the large ones, as if there was an equilibrium between the scale of the mark and the size of the work. Might the scale of the mark be enlarged in the bigger pieces, to fit the scale?
The figurative works didnt grab me as much at first but after a while began to impart a palpable narrative. I preferred the ones that were simpler or had fewer components.
AA: Ego is good. Style is bland... eventually.
Matt's paintings look nice, but are they sitting on a shelf leaning against a mirror?
They deserve better than that.
Kaiser Sudan may be "sincere in his desire to assist artists", however he operates as a commercial gallery taking 50% of sales. He's not a non-profit!!
Get real.
those paintings are leaning on the mirror because they reall aren't part of the show, they were there just for the opening and then removed, because that is their work space, thanks for the comment.
matt lewis, are you joel?
I guess I see the connection between the application of paint. joel- matt
But there content is so much different, which do you think has influenced the other?
john.w
we are talking about joel t dugan, right?
no, i am matt lewis, i was asking if joel was writing the comment
we were in studio at the same time and we're friends and we talk about painting actually qite a bit now, more than we ever did before.
matt lewis
hey john, do i know you? anyways thanks for the compliment. not sure if that was your comment
"Matt's paintings look nice, but are they sitting on a shelf leaning against a mirror?
They deserve better than that.
2:48 AM "
matt lewis
Just stumbled on this and I am also interested in who made the connection between matt and my self.
Paint-is the common thread that connects us both. Both of us are very aware of the push and pull activity and very much embrace each others work.
Well hey it could be worse matt, you could be compared to alot of other artist on this blog.
joel t dugan
Well perhaps you should see what he spends on an opening.What other galleries have great food, great crowds, great live music, booze and serious buyers at their openings? Next Step Studios and Galllery owner does a great job on marketing and helping other artists jump start their careers.This is far from being commerical...............and yes I hear that he bought both buildings next door to his.
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