Brion Gysin & William S. Burroughs: The Third Mind, 1965. From Look Into My Owl’s review of Dreammachine, the Brion Gysin retrospective show.
Brion Gysin: Calligraffitti of Fire, 1985. Gysin’s final piece, and one of his few large-scale pieces. From the official Brion Gysin website; provides a lot of examples of his work (paintings, audio, videos), as well as articles discussing him, his techniques, shows, anything.
A natural progression of events have led me to an interest in the questionable genre of “outsider art” (which I find to be an unjust descriptor, but for the sake of simplicity and acknowledgment of the futility of arguing semantics I will use) – a realization that I work in a similar manner to many of these artists, my interest in working more with what is available than what is ideal, rejection of or lack of formal training, and no ulterior motive besides the act of producing. Without any better place to begin, the doodles of Scottie Wilson were brought to the attention of Dubuffet who in turn brought outsider art to the attention of a greater populace. His drawings covered a good range of subject matter, many portraits, plants, simple designs rendered in pen and ink, heavy with hatching; the drawings’ isolation from prior schools of technique create a sort of mythology of their own (Wilson coined the terms “Greedies” and “Evils” to describe particular figures).
From outsidein.org, focusing on outsider art. Provides a good biography of Wilson's life and discovery (always an important and interesting read).
For me, and for I’m sure many other art admirers, the name Josef Albers is much more readily accessible in the organization of my mind than his wife, Anni. It wasn’t until very recently that I even became aware of the work of his wife (perhaps I should begin referring to Josef Albers as the husband of Anni), even after studying his work extensively. Even given the short amount of time I’ve been aware of Mrs. Albers’ work I would say without hesitation that her weavings provide so much more than her husband’s fields of color. She focuses on textures and colors and creates them in ways that I emulate (I realized I have been using forms lifted directly from some of her tapestries before I even knew they existed, such as Black-White-Gold I (1950)). Abstractions of colors side by side, mostly muted, textures that fill the entire hanging, but full of internal variation, and only artifacts of any message not present in the medium – these are what draw me to her work (and I bring these points up about most every artist I discuss, but perhaps that’s the point).
It seems to me that many take solace in the concrete , that emptiness and the untranslatable are the true sources of anxiety. Assuming I am no different the average human, then, why am I drawn and take comfort in abstractions and that I can find no obvious meaning? I do not know if I have answer, but it happens nevertheless. No better example is that of standing face to face with two huge rectangles, one of black and one of mottled green on a red background, an experience whose pleasure has only been brought to me by Mark Rothko. The magnitude, the colors, and the roughness contain everything that is of importance – that is, very little but in great quantity and quality. Rothko’s paintings are a complete sensory encapsulation; they leave no room for thoughts besides the immediate pigment and canvas (perhaps this is the concreteness that allows for such ameliorating effects). Rothko rejected explanation of his work, claiming the “silence is so accurate;” it seems to me anything else to be said would be superfluous (as would any more expansion upon the personal appeal of his work).
“Red, Orange, Tan, and Purple,” 1954. From abstract-art.com, in a pretty good gallery of abstract expressionists.
