Not exactly breaking news (the show closes tomorrow), but Scott Noel’s exhibiting new work right now at Gross McCleaf in Philly. I’m intrigued by this body of work. I usually think of him as having a kind of perceptual/observational gravitas thing in relation to the motif. With that as the precedent, some of these new paintings are borderline whimsical. (New paintings are at the top of the page on the link).
Storytelling via the objects is very effective.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tya3SF-JFFI
If I may, here is a link to a little video of Noel talking about his work in the show. 6 minutes on youtube. 9 more to go…
something that is NOT discussed in the video, or in the catalog essay, is the reason for the floating objects in the paintings. I would like to hear what Scott’s answer to that: “Why the floating objects and figures?”
I had a nice talk with Scott when I visited Philly the week the show opened, and we talked a lot about the mythological/historical “personalities” in the portraits, (Megara, Augustus and Marc Antony) but yeah, the floating objects never came up! Jeff Carr talks about them quite a bit in the catalogue essay though.
that ‘advent of the muses’ painting seems to have some precedent in early lopez-garcia. i seem to remember some airborne figures in noel paintings before…there’s still a basketball player painting on the gross mccleaf site. i think he worked that subject a few times, and there was also a ‘rapture’ painting with floating naked people from around the same time.
I thought of that specific Lopez painting, too, Chris. Walking in the air, over a cityscape. It’s in the old book, but not the catalog from MFA Boston.
yeah, the lopez painting is/was an influence for those floating figures. the jumping b-ball players play off of lennart anderson street scenes (which themselves were a response to degas’ spartan youth). also, scott used to play a lot of basketball when he was younger. but yes, even in the jeff carr essay, he never says Why are the objects floating
John, how concrete does that answer need to be?
what is the answer? some of those floating figures, yes, do come from looking at lopez. but that doesnt answer for me why scott decided to start doing those for himself. he has done jumping, not inexplicably floating, basketball players, and angels, which do tend to fly. i am especially curious about the floating still life objects, that’s all.
Floating is just another attribute of walking. Floating also re-sets time and reality. There is a Philosopher, I think named Stephenson, maybe at Ann Arbor, who wrote about cause and effect. He said that When a pencil falls from your hand and it hits the floor, it would seem that the reality is that you surrendered the pencil to gravity and that caused the falling pencil to hit the floor, but ( with a lot of exquisite theorizing) he cont’d, there is no proof of the cause and effect relationship of pencil and floor.
When something floats, it allows for a limitless contemplation of where the boundaries of reality might be found.