Inspiration is for Amateurs

UPDATE:  This time of year, I tend to get in the mood to read / see / hear others struggling with inspiration. It feeds my own creative urges to know that I’m not alone. I know that creative fire – which burns in the belly is there – it’s what makes you want to get up and do….  so I am re-posting this in the spirit of stoking up the fire a bit….  so I too am not will to be waiting for inspiration to strike…

While I’m not of the same opinion in regards to the true meaning of the word “Amateurs”….  I value the tenacity expressed by Chuck Close below…

Below is from Chuck Close interview by Joe Fig – (Plus Ultra Gallery, NY)

CC: Inspiration is for amateurs. The rest of us just show up and get to work and the belief that things will grow out of the activity itself and that you will, through work, bump into other possibilities and kick open other doors that you would never dream up if you were just sitting around looking for a great art idea. And that a belief in that the process, in a sense, is liberating and that you don’t have to reinvent the wheel everyday. Today you know what you will do, you could be doing what you were doing yesterday and tomorrow you are going to do what you did today and at least for a certain period of time if you can just work to hang in there, you will get somewhere.

What moves you ?

A Picture of absence and a youth’s portrait

Gerhard Richter, Jugendbildnis

Gerhard Richter, Jugendbildnis, photograph by Joachim Schulz from the series “aura”.

A couple of years ago I noticed a series of photographs named “Aura”  by photographer Joachim Schulz.  I have off and on remembered these pictures, but couldn’t remember who had made them.  I came across them again through the site GALERIE POLLER . What appealed to me about the pictures then and now is noticing the trace left behind – and about the possibility of art to transform place … to create a certain collective recollection of events…

Youth Portrait by Gerhard Richter

Jugendbildnis (Youth Portrait)

Gerhard Richter, 1988

67 cm X 62 cm, Oil on canvas

Who is this that the painting depicts ?

“She is a student from the 60s or 70s, a soulful look in her eyes, her hair over her forehead; the painting plays up the innocence of the pose. This is Ulrike Meinhof.” source

ulrike_meinhof_als_junge_journalistin

The painting of this youth looking innocent enough – harmless, sentimental, benign even - but then again -looks can be deceiving as Richter perhaps points out with his series October 18, 1977.  Ideology and the accompanying ”isms” often get in the way of really seeing…

I went back and looked at the other pictures of missing pictures of the series “Aura” wondering if another thread might help me to appreciate the series – perhaps something about why these particular photographic situations – post hanging – might be of worth to photograph.  It’s not immediately apparent to me other than perhaps the pictures are all relatively well known – or by well known artists….    While I like the conceptual idea alluded to in the text describing the series, it leaves me wishing that the photographer Joachim Schulz, might have embedded more into the work – by choosing certain specific absent art pieces to tell a story.   Either way,  along similar lines  checkout more of Jachim Schulz work here – the curtains are very nice…

Every Season, Every Occasion, Every Day!

Welcome to America’s Favorite Thrift Store!
Matt Niebuhr, 2007

Departing from the usual posting of interests in other’s work, I’m happy to announce something of my own appearing in a Group show – December 6, 2008 – January 2009.

As economic events – local and world wide – unfold, this image takes on additional narrative qualities:  is the reason the season? And of consumption as it truly becomes apparently unsustainable,  I continue to ask myself this question: What do we value?  Why?  Perhaps in the reflections, or a simple sign, a hint…

100 x 100 PHOTO organized by the Barcelona art gallery Espai [b]

“Every Season, Every Occasion, Every Day!”
60 cm x 40 cm – on aluminum sheet
limited edition of 100

More information: www.espaib.com

More information on other work here: Matt Niebuhr in an updated form.