Enjoying deeply In Search of the Miraculous’ thoughts on the uber-productive over extended art world. Perhaps what is really in order though, a behind the scenes expose on the studio assistant. I am not sure how realistic it is to expect these folks to be really stretching, preening, pulling and gathering large bushels of work with out the help of those poorly paid and the really over extended studio assistants. Although it appears some folks don’t seem to have it so bad.
I bring this up because as I was reading my newly delivered W magazine this weekend (the one I have previously bitched about ungraciously only to find my poor sister had gone to the trouble…) albeit the thoroughly heinous but strangely compelling October issue of W magazine, which we find is dedicated to ART (their words, not mine) . Our first article we come across is a beefy full pager on the well established, albeit 25 year old Max Eisenstein. Max is packing up his studio in Soho as he has his first show in Los Angeles this month at Kantor Gallery in L.A.
His main gripe after a two-year stint as both Chuck Close and Cecily Brown’s studio assist is he has to leave town to claim his own identity:
He is moving to Los Angeles just in time for his solo debut. The logic behind his unconventional westward migration: ” A lot of people in New York know me through Chuck or Cecily, so I have to do all I can to not ride that into a career,” he says. Nobody from New York goes to L.A. to paint, so I figure I’ll go there and get famous. – page 92.
{Okay!}
Yet still I don’t quite know what to make of this rag. If you emptied it out of all the Armani and Guess ads (parked next to the Marc Jacobs ads starring John Currin’s wife, utterly a coincidence I am sure) you would have this weird mix of trust fund kids going shopping coupled with this stuff that almost but not quite could make it into one of the art mags. Maybe a little too gossipy and weird to be seen in a mainstream art magazine- for instance Virgil Marti’s ad campaign for Ellen Tracy (sorry I couldn’t find a link for that).
Also in this issue:
Inteview with gallerist Shaun Caley Regen of L.A.’s Regan Projects. (one for L.A.!) Pg. 244.
Profile of Greek art collector (he’s Greek, not the art) Dakis Joannou, with his Koons, Cady Nolans, Matthew Barneys and more Koons. Pg. 364.
Portfolio of 10 portraits, commissioned by W magazine by Alex Katz. Includes a timely Cup Cake free Martha Stewart portrait.Read about it here in artcritical.com. Pg.332.
“The Life of Riley: Curator, architect and arbiter of taste, Terence Riley of MoMA’s man on the move”. Pg. 234. God, this is better than In Touch magazine!
And last but not least, profile of Rosita Marlborough – who is an Artist First- Dutchess Second (pg. 274) .
Well, that’s enough to fill a day with important information.
Anyway, back to those studio assistants. If anyone has any compelling evidence to spill on the life of the lowly studio assist- we’re all ears.
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A big special thanks to Todd Gibson for telling us all about the results of his survey, and extra, extra big thanks to everyone who took the time to take it.