September 23, 2009
“The consciousness of the personal and spontaneous… stimulated the artist to invent devices of handling, processing, surfacing, which confer to the utmost degree the aspect of the freely made. Hence the importance of the mark, the stroke, the brush, the drip, the quality of the substance of the paint itself, and the surface of the canvas as a texture and field of operation – all signs of the artist’s active presence….. The impulse . . . becomes tangible and definite on the surface of a canvas through the painted mark. We see, as it were, the track of emotion, its obstruction, persistence or extinction…. (E)lements of so-called chance or accident [are] submitted to critical control by the artist who is alert to the rightness and wrongness of the elements delivered spontaneously, and accepts or rejects them.”
Meyer Schapiro
quoted by Irving Sandler in A Sweeper-Up After Artists: A Memoir.
September 21, 2009
The Brothers Quay
Stephen and Timothy Quay (born June 17, 1947)
Dormitorium: Film Decors by the Quay Bros.
Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Gallery
Parsons The New School for Design
“‘Dormitorium’ is much more than just a collection of props and artifacts; instead, the ‘décors’ you see on view here are something of a revelation, leading one to a greater understanding and appreciation of the Quay Brother’s artistry. Having the luxury of time to study these décors in their static state allows the viewer to see things impossible to grasp amidst the thrust and drive of the films; namely, the obsessive and beautiful detail in the source materials. The more one looks, the more one comes to realize that this attention to detail and minutia is what gives the Quay’s work so much of its character and mise en scène–at least as much as their lurchy, atmospheric, uncanny stop-motion animation technique. Details such as exquisite and varied typography and calligraphy, a judicious application of dust and grime, the seductively hand-made feel of the materials, and wall hangings, hidden figures, archaic signage and other easy-to-miss details adorning the spaces; of these elements is the Quay’s compelling and absorbing universe composed.”
