Jef Bourgeau

NEW PAINTINGS - Private Viewing Only

2011-06-21T18:12:00.000-07:00

Several new abstract canvases by the American artist Jef Bourgeau will be on private view at Art Room, for two weeks - beginning June 29th by appointment only: call director Jessica Hopkins at 249-210-7560, or, email: detroitmona@aol.com for more information and to reserve a tour.

[the painting above: The Artist Without His Beard, 2011 - canvas 48"x36".]

Jef Bourgeau by Jan van der Marck

2009-09-24T22:05:00.000-07:00

An 8 minute edit from a 30 minute PBS interview with Jan van der Marck: discussing the art of Jef Bourgeau.

A Moon Shot

2009-07-20T22:34:00.000-07:00

A bit of a change-up from the abstraction of late.

SHREDDED HIRST

2009-07-16T22:15:00.000-07:00

I came across this one tonight in the storage room - from the kaBOOM! show a while back. And am uploading it now due to current facebook talks about the notion of having just "one" retrospective and what does that mean anyway.

Hirst had one in 2003 for Saatchi; then another this year in Kiev titled "Requiem".

Screw it... This is the age of excess and over-exposure! We should all go for an even dozen.

And so, on topic, I remember and brought this one up too: from a piece published in FLASH ART in 1999 (titled, CONNECTING HIRST'S DOTS).

Art for Sale

2009-07-15T14:56:00.000-07:00

This is another work in Bourgeau's current series of Anachronistic-futurism. Don't ask.

Today's Art

2009-07-14T22:55:00.001-07:00

Another in the latest series, which will be on exhibition soon in fact -- my first solo show in over a decade. The last was in 1995 I think at David Klein's. Been working undercover since then. We'll have to have a coming out party.

New Print for Sale

2009-07-13T11:15:00.001-07:00

Today's Art

2009-07-09T21:29:00.000-07:00

This is a 5" x 7" archival print titled THE BLUE BLOUSE, and is available in an edition of five, available for $100 through this site only.

If interested, contact by email: detroitart@aol.com

TODAY'S ARTWORK

2009-07-08T21:57:00.000-07:00

This is a 5" x 7" archival print titled THE PORTAL, and is available in an edition of five, available for $100 through this site only.

If interested, email: detroitart@aol.com

Blahblahblah

2007-12-08T23:18:00.000-08:00

New Art Movement Poised To Sweep The Globe:
It will change the way we view the world
by Cesar Marzetti, excerpted from his recent lecture "The Truly First and Only Art Movement of the 21st Century, Even..."

Late in the last century, the loss of blahblahblah spawned the rise of an anti-blahblahblah. Even for cultural theorists, discussions concerning blahblahblah were often carried out in a critical blahblahblah that failed to engage with the work of art, much less any notions of blahblahblah. To see the art object by itself as embodying and conveying blahblahblah quickly became an outdated blahblahblah within the contemporary art world.

People started to make art at university in response to whatever blahblahblah they read. This blahblahblah became instrumental in creating the art: it served the art and the art served the blahblahblah. The practical body of work suffered accordingly. Any changes in the blahblahblah surrounding contemporary art are now intimately linked to art’s overall blahblahblah and specifically to its 'blahblahblahism'.
But now, a distinctly 21st Century blahblahblahism re-allows the idea that focusing on the total blahblahblah has the potential to open radically different ways of thinking about blahblahblah, blahblahblah and blahblahblah. If we allow the old 'blahblahblah' to enter a more reflective phase, we can expect the appearance of this new blahblahblahism. At a moment that is often termed 'post-blahblahblah', this is a direct index to which there is a renewed willingness among critics and philosophers to consider the ways in which cultural blahblahblah often overlooked key aspects of its reliance on philosophical blahblahblah.

The art object itself has become a distant and vague blahblahblah. The work itself no longer applies as the blahblahblah for one's conviction of its 'blahblahblahism'. A work of art is no longer visually blahblahblah from a non-art object. Instead, its placement in an art space and context has orientated it within a coherent blahblahblah of artistic blahblahblahs, blahblahblahs, blahblahblahs and modes of blahblahblahs otherwise known as the 'blahblahblah'. This leaves art as a blahblahblah activity, an institutional blahblahblah (and no longer a unique species of blahblahblah as such).

Such a peripheral blahblahblah makes any discussion of the art object suddenly blahblahblah and instead targets art only in relation to the modes of blahblahblah and the blahblahblah that surrounds it.

However, with the birth of a new blahblahblahism, there is a will to return to a consideration of the artwork’s blahblahblah itself. Heralding this nascent blahblahblah suddenly becomes a priority for all of art practice to develop an even greater blahblahblah, without being constricted by measurable blahblahblahs but reclaiming such now-mythologized blahblahblahs as 'blahblahblah', 'blahblahblah' and 'blahblahblah': special qualities requiring no further blahblahblah from any externally imposing blahblahblahism.

A Lost Review

2007-12-05T21:59:00.000-08:00

LOOKING OUTSIDE-IN: The Art of Jef Bourgeau
By ROGER GREEN
Booth Arts Writer

The challenge to “Think outside the box” might seem definitively 2007. But the strategy has a long, influential history, not least as regards the development of modern art. The intent has always been to question orthodoxies, to stimulate new ways of thinking and ultimately to foster meaningful social change.

That tradition continues in the work of Detroit artist Jef Bourgeau, who for nearly 40 years has thought creatively outside the box, assimilating sophisticated critical theory while utilizing new technology to achieve penetrating, expressive aims. Through Oct. 7, the Oakland University Art Gallery is showing a retrospective of Bourgeau’s inventive art. The exhibit was curated by Jan van der Marck, former chief curator at the Detroit Institute of Arts.

Items on view, dating from 1968 to the present, are paintings, prints. photographs, assemblages, videos and materials documenting conceptual projects. The thread linking them and guiding Bourgeau’s development is pinpointed in van der Marck’s illuminating catalog essay. Simulation, the fundamental link, has been identified by cultural theorist Jean Baudrillard as endemic to the present “hyperreal” age, in which simulated copies have superseded original objects. Bourgeau has taken up and run with the notion of simulation, exercising it in slippery critiques of society, in particular of the art world and its politics.

Viewers will note that, despite Bourgeau’s satiric, even subversive aims, his craftsmanship is always superb. Working in a variety of media, he’s created and is showing a body of remarkably polished two- and three-dimensional objects.

One assemblage, “American Beauty (Sleeping)” comprises a playpen holding the bust of a child mannequin and a carpenter’s hammer. The piece is a comment about imminent violence against children -- think Columbine -- intensified by crisp construction from spare, unsullied parts. In a series of mixed-media pieces Bourgeau distills the essence of well-known artists into memorable, marketable, black-and-white logos (Magritte is a pipe, Matisse a pair of scissors). Here again, the workmanship is meticulous.

It’s just this technical perfection that makes Bourgeau’s conceptual projects -- gutsy exercises in simulation -- believable. His exhibit “Picasso’s Camera” purported to reveal the unrecognized genesis of Cubism: a camera with a cracked lens belonging to the artist. From what Bourgeau alleged was a roll of undeveloped film found in the camera, he created a series of fractured photo portraits, jestfully but convincingly redefining one of the wellsprings of modern art.

Most recently, Bourgeau has extended simulation into performance, assuming the identities of made-up, international artists and exhibiting their works with the aim of questioning curatorship, authenticity and the marketing of art. One of Bourgeau’s alter egos, Norwegian photographer Stig Eklund, creates moody pictures materializing northern angst and light.

In fact, Eklund’s and others’ pictures are creditable works of art in their own right. Continuing to make art under fake identities should be Bourgeau’s next career move, van der Marck said. The ability to do that testifies to Bourgeau’s endless invention, including self-invention, and to a talent that merits hearty applause.

blahblahblah

2007-11-14T08:21:00.000-08:00

blahblahblahism

Late in the last century, the rise of theory spawned the rise of anti-aestheticism. Even for cultural theorists discussions concerning aesthetics were often carried out in a critical shorthand that failed to engage with the work of art, much less any notions of aesthetic experience. Any attempt to see the art object as embodying and conveying knowledge in itself quickly faded as an outdated conception.

People started to make art at university in response to what theory they read. The writing became fundamental in creating the art: it served the art and the art served the writing. The practical body of work suffered accordingly. Any changes in the discourses surrounding contemporary art became intimately linked to art education and to the artist's 'professionalization'.

Moving into this new century, the art object has become a distant concern. A work of art no longer applies as the source for one's conviction of its value. An art object is no longer visually distinct from a non-art object. Instead, its placement in an art space and context has orientated it within an established network of artistic practices, ideas, debates and modes of display otherwise known as the 'artworld'. This leaves art solely as an artworld activity, an institutional activity.

Such a peripheral focus makes a discussion of the art object irrelevant and instead targets art only in relation to accepted discourse, modes of representation and elucidation..

A revived aestheticism encourages the idea that the intrinsic impact of a work of art has the potential to open radically different ways of thinking about identity, politics and culture. If we encourage 'theory' to enter a more reflective phase, we can expect the appearance of a new aestheticism. At a moment that is often termed 'post-theoretical', this is a direct index to which there is a renewed willingness among critics and philosophers to consider the ways in which cultural theory often overlooked key aspects of the object.

Blahblahblahism restores a consideration of the physicality of the artwork, and of style and form. B lahblahblahism heralds a priority for art practice to develop organically, without being constricted by measurable criteria but reclaiming now-mythologized terms such as 'creativity', 'artist' and 'art': special qualities requiring freedom from any externally imposing theory.

A Boy's Life

2006-10-01T10:39:00.000-07:00

Stig Eklund

2006-08-28T09:01:00.000-07:00

In his best known work, Norwegian artist Stig Eklund (b. 1978) addresses the familiarity and popularity of cinema by manipulating, splicing, and reframing it to heighten the viewers’ perceptions. Eklund's films and photographs linger on darkened but captivating details of the everyday, transforming the banal into grand metaphors. By his constant return to increasingly haunted fragments, Eklund provokes feelings of anxiety and of coerced recognition.
By forcing these encounters with the familiar and confrontations with now-indelible images, Eklund exposes the distance between our seemingly impregnable memories and, perhaps, the truth—emphatically demonstrating that what he sculpts is not only media but time itself.

saatchi gallery link

My Links

2006-08-27T12:42:00.000-07:00

All these artists (linked) are connected to the work I've been doing at the Museum of New Art (MONA) for the last 10 years.

The double or doppelganger appears as a leitmotif throughout Bourgeau's art. It is present as both a structural and metaphoric device through which he articulates the condition of doubling that is so essential to his work. So, while Bourgeau never includes his "own" images, he is everywhere. It is an example of the artist inserting himself into an exhibition via the guise of someone else, a performative transvestism that allows him to both expand upon and deflect the notion of a unitary self. It is no surprise, therefore, that Marcel Duchamp and Andy Warhol form the conceptual core of the exhibition — both of these artists fashioned elaborate public personae, which, one can argue, were as much a part of their art as their actual art objects.

The MONA is in and of itself a work of art in which Bourgeau conflates the egotistical search for perpetual recognition and the anxiety one experiences about the transience of life, suggesting that together they form the impulse behind artistic creativity. - Jane Speaks

thomas baedeker
hanne bloot
jef bourgeau
billy conklin
stig eklund
jan de groot
michael koenig
nobu matsui
riso mattner
taki murakishi
martin pottinger
kenzu nagawa
meg reardon
karl strumpf
missy wiggins

BOILER ROOM ART

2006-08-25T07:50:00.000-07:00

BOILER ROOM ARTIST
@ The Museum of New Art
In the art world, Charles Saatchi’s name is already written in stone. To some he is the greatest thing that ever happened to contemporary art. His passion for art is unquestioned. To others, however, he is a dealer in collector's stock, using his influence to manipulate the market. He buys an artist's work in bulk and at low prices, then watches. There are many takers for the Charles Saatchi brand. Art prices can both rocket and plummet at his whim.
There once was a time - and it wasn't so long ago - that Mr Saatchi used to spend his Saturday mornings trawling the edgier, grungier, not-yet-gentrified areas of London for up-and-coming, smart young art talent.
The British collector still goes shopping on Saturday mornings, but these days he mostly stays closer to home in Chelsea. And his discoveries now tend to be more modest when you consider his latest stumble on an art find in the downstairs of his new Chelsea gallery at Sloane Square.
Upon surveying recent renovation in the basement of his new gallery, Mr Saatchi was startled by 56 year-old Pottinger’s boiler room walls which were spattered with mud patching and of half-finished rollered paint. "My God, this is what great art should be." said Saatchi. "Something that gives real visual pleasure and makes you sit up and think, not the pseudo-controversial rehashed claptrap that so many believe is cutting-edge art."
Plenty of people have had the dream of finding a lost or hidden masterpiece in their attic, but how does one respond to what they find a common worker doing in their cellar? Mr Saatchi isn’t alone in his convictions. Such "isolation and visual focus denotes importance: the greater the masterpiece, the greater its separation from other objects that might compete for attention." Victoria Newhouse writes in her book, Art and the Power of Placement.
Pottinger's boiler room art has been likened to the recent discovery of British cave paintings in Church Hole cave in Creswell Crags, Derbyshire. It is that important to Mr Saatchi, who almost never grants interviews or speaks publicly. He has described the fresh drywall work in his gallery's basement as "infinitely more exciting than almost anything seen upstairs in years".

Martin Pottinger was born in Leeds in 1950. He studied at the British Gypsum Drywall Academy training centre at East Leake, in Leicestershire.
SAATCHI GALLERY LINK (click)
ARTDAILY (click)

Do you have to get there first?

2006-07-09T20:14:00.000-07:00

These 2 images (above) are of work by the Swiss artist Eric Hattan, going back to the mid-90's. The photo below is recent work by Detroit artist Mike Smith.

Dutch artist Hanne Bloot begins series of Drapes and Windows

2006-07-09T15:12:00.000-07:00

Hanne Bloot has begun a series based on light from windows and drapes. This first is titled Man at Window.