341. June 19th…It’s….. “Art Santa Fe”…… Holy cow!!!… I’m just quivering with anticipation…hope you are too!!!!

“Grates” 2010

“Half of the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don’t mean to do harm. But the harm does not interest them.”- T.S. Elliot

“Art Santa Fe” next month (July 15-18)…sounds as exciting as  Starbucks new flavor of coffee….if you’ve not experienced Art Santa Fe…..perhaps you don’t know what you are missing or are like most people….you don’t have to experience a root canal to know clearly you don’t want one….the atmosphere is grand…a southwestern collision with some fragment of a New York art gallery tucked nicely in like a jalapeno….in sherbert……..the air is thick with lip smacking…..a myriad of bare asses just waiting to be kissed…..ah….the city different……different from any other place on the planet…..

Santa Fe has a rich and dense history…..something evidenced at any corner of the older part of the city…..in itself Santa Fe is a wonderful place…..yet when required to put on the provincial trappings and host an art venue of this magnitude…Santa Fe contorts into a rather abstract version of itself……the art represented……is like most attempts at modern art….there is absolutely nothing modern about it…or the galleries represented are showing the works of so many dead painters…it’s like trying to get excited about re-runs of “The Beverly Hillbillies”…..the air stifling from repetition and presentation of the same old thing wrapped in new paper….and a different colored bow….

The Railyard galleries are certainly a breath of fresh air for the city…used to be the only opportunities for art was Canyon Road and it’s peripheries or the plaza…..where retail ranged from ten cents…..to five hundred thousand dollars….something for everyone….of course…Canyon Road was once a true gallery venture….yet now gallery spaces are so expensive…they can only afford to represent and…..I say this loosely….”Top drawer artists“….galleries are curated by self-proclaimed curators…..the art work in many cases is over inflated to install some sense of urgency…..and “we have the best….most upcoming emerging artists on the planet” sort of mentality……in most galleries on Canyon Road….you will be greeted by a tight anorexic young women wearing all black…who is going to inundate you with overwhelming art babble….so expect….

“Don’t you feel the enormous vibrational quality….emerging from the contrasting levels of chiaroscuro in this piece, it’s as if the artist has transcended the sublime for a greater sense of simplicity somewhere between the stark minimalistic vocabulary and the expressionistic palette and has created a compositional void so intense that every brush stroke offers an individualized voice that is interdependent on the juxtaposition of the line and form quality to contribute to the over all success of the piece…..don’t you agree????……………….two hundred seventy-five thousand dollars……visa, MasterCard, american express”

my favorite gallery on Canyon Road…..isn’t a gallery at all……. but a restaurant…El Farrol….wonderful tapas….great beer and atmosphere….where you can sit and watch the art world….perhaps discuss…form and function…and the relationship of line to………….or better yet just enjoy the Spanish white sardines and the polenta…..