Again, a batch of newish prints, which are more or less unedited, on purpose. More and more, art students are trained to shape a consistent “brand.” I prefer a free mind to an art hobbled by professional strategy. One kind of artist can happily spend a whole lifetime exploring the many facets of a deliberately constrained idea. I’m the other kind. I prefer to look for a new sprout to cultivate each time I begin, rather than stubbornly hoeing my chosen row. Some things come out stronger than others, I think, but for the moment, I’m choosing to basically share the whole lot, for honesty’s sake.

The other night, I showed Carl Fuermann how to make a monotype, and while doing so, got back on that horse for a bit. Thank you, Carl. Just a few little bits here to share from that evening and a moment a few days later. Carl took his home with him, so I don’t have them to post.

Alicia Bailey, proprietor of Abcedarian Gallery in Denver, has some of my prints from the 1990s showing in her secret room of treasures. There are a few recent monotypes from the show at Ironton, but the focus of this mini-exhibition is a series of etchings based on historic game boards. When I look at these older etchings, I notice how much they resemble the painted animations I’ve done in recent years (the “Unsecret Block” and the canvas animations that were shown at Ironton), with broad shapes compiled from little compartments, with much of the energy coming from “local” gesture and touch, rather than from blunt graphic impact. In short, you have to have to actually pause and look closely, otherwise it’s hardly worth your while. By this time (mid 90s), I’d already been painting on 16mm film for several years, so I was at home with this kind of “macro” aesthetic.

The background of these game boards is interesting to me, and perhaps to you, dear reader. Here are some relatively brief descriptions, taken from the text on the wall at Abcedarian:

The Royal & Most Pleasant Game of the Goose

The Game of the Goose dates back to at least the 1500s, and this etching is related to a version that was printed in England around 1725. Played with dice, this is considered the prototype of all “race” games, and a variety of terrors, dangers, and opportunities lurk on the way to the central portal. Some of these, like Death, ended the game entirely for the unfortunate player. This was a drinking and gambling game, and if one landed on the Ale House, for instance, one would be obliged to add money to the pot, drink, and miss one’s turn. Falling in The Well could also cause wet, frustrating delays. On the other hand, landing on a Goose would double the number one rolled, allowing one to swiftly proceed toward victory and profit. Original impressions of this early British printing are exceptionally rare, the late 20th century Waldemar variant even more so. It is one artifact of Waldemar’s continuing study of how humans spend their time. The “Winnie the Pooh” game is a modern variant.

The Game of Snakes & Ladders

The Game of Snakes and Ladders is derived from an Indian game of morality and consequences called Vaikuntapaali or Paramapada Sopanam (The Ladder to Salvation). One ascends through the numbered squares, and when a player lands on a square that represents a virtuous act or principle, a ladder brings the traveler instantly to a higher level on the board. On the other hand, when one lands on a snake-head square, one is eaten, digested, and deposited lower down on the board through the snake’s anus. The player is amusingly reminded of the threat and lure of reward and punishment. The game migrated from Colonial India to England and beyond, and it is, of course, the precursor to the charming and vapid “Chutes & Ladders,” familiar even now to those of us who grew up in the 20th century.

The Game of the Fox & Geese

The Game of Fox and Geese, or Halatfl, dates back to at least about 1300 AD in Scandinavia, and it’s mentioned in the Grettis Saga. In one common version, the Fox, is assailed by a mob of 13 bloodthirsty geese. If the Fox can reach the edge of the board alive, (s)he wins.  The two players have entirely different agendas. Halatafl filled the blank hours at sea as Vikings set out to pillage Europe, then amused them through the long dark winters back home, as they shivered in smoky rooms with their loot.

Alicia is one of the foremost dealers in one-of-a-kind or small edition artists books, and even if you don’t like my work, you’re sure to find something of interest in the secret annexe in which my works reside. It’s not that secret, really. Walk into the gallery, and if the door to the secret club isn’t open, just open it, or ask someone to. From that moment on, you’re a member.

A few images of the layout of “Time & Attention” at Ironton for those who weren’t able to attend. Zibby has some images from the opening that may appear in days to come, but here’s something, at least. To those who made it to the show, looked hard, talked with me, bought things or didn’t, helped in various ways, wrote kind words in the book, etc., many thanks…

Short Version_Animations from UCD FA1001 with Eric Waldemar from Eric Waldemar on Vimeo.

Several people asked me about relationships between the ink drawings in Time and Attention and the prints. Many of the drawings were made during a period when I was working on images for Richard Loranger’s book Poems for Teeth.  Working with black ink and a brush, a drawing either coalesces or goes wrong. No reworking is really possible, and many are destroyed. One commits to a mark, uncertain of why, and with luck and grace, something emerges, vivid and surprising. Monotype, on the other hand (which makes up much of the exhibition) allows endless reworking, and an image can change into another image and yet another over the course of several hours. Still, though, there’s a moment where one has to commit, and run the plate through the press, and, like a gestural ink drawing, the image either coalesces or fails to work, irrevocably. The best images are often transformed by the press and come as a surprise, just as my favorite ink drawings startle me and make me feel like a fortunate spectator in a process I direct, but don’t really comprehend.

Eric Waldemar: Time & Attention from Eric Waldemar on Vimeo.

To a drive-by glance, Denver’s Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) is a massive block of dark glass with several overhanging elements, broad angular articulations, and rectilinear protuberances, striking in a neighborhood of older structures.  If one pauses, one immediately notices a clear panel, off-center in the greenish-black grid of panes, and a look down the side courtyard on the left reveals a wood-covered overhanging room, also with a clear window. Cantilevered to hang out over the side “alley,” this prominent feature helps set the tone for a building that signals institutional authority while reveling in its own design quirks.

With modest lettering indicating “MCA DENVER,” a neighbor could easily pass by without realizing that this was a museum. The current exhibitions are listed, but the signs are partially hidden behind the outside wall of an entry tunnel that spans most of the building’s façade. They are also listed vertically, so one needs to tilt one’s head sideways to read them. It’s frankly difficult to perceive this as a warm welcome, and one needs to go down a tunnel and up a ramp if one wants to learn more.  One is greeted by a ticket seller before reaching the top of the ramp, so that one is standing sideways on a significant slope as one considers purchasing admission.  The newcomer seems deliberately thrown off balance, and the cashier is positioned slightly above the nervous art lover.

Once one is admitted, the space opens up, with large openings linking the lower and upper floors, and the entry area feels surprisingly airy, considering the forbidding exterior. Light streams in from skylights throughout the building, and there are more large, clear windows than the MCA’s most prominent exterior face would suggest.  Most of the dark glass in the building is concealed behind panels of off-white, translucent MonoPan, a polypropylene paneling with a subtly textured fiberglass skin.  Air trapped between the glass and MonoPan surfaces holds heat. Indeed, Adjaye’s design wears its “Green Building” intentions on its sleeve, showcasing its structural elements, high tech materials, and straightforward efficiencies, including open columns of air that bring natural light deep into the building’s center. Efficiency is important here, because there’s a lot of air to heat, with upstairs galleries that seem to tower several stories high. Hallways are off-white canyons. A window about 12 feet wide looks down on 15^th Street (this is the clear block in the opaque grid of windows one sees from the street). A nearby bench, one of very few places to sit at MCA, faces not the city view or any exhibition, but a corridor wall. White space is emphasized, and there is plenty of it. Whatever the exhibition, one never stops being aware of the building.

I was struck by MCA’s sonic architecture. Sounds carry far in its multi-story airspaces, and from the stairwell I could clearly hear conversations in galleries above and below me, distorted by echoes. The metal stairs thunder and reverberate. Tempted to tap out rhythms in the complex acoustic space of the stairwell, I became self-conscious, knowing that every tap or footstep would carry through the whole building. One could say that this creates a sort of intimacy, tying the building’s entire social space together.  On the other hand, one could say that it makes a large space seem paradoxically small, with every conversation public.

The penthouse level  opens up to the sky and the city with a large outdoor patio. There is a garden area, with a literally flat selection of ground-hugging plants, with very little elevation from their metal trays. I was reminded of the icons that architects use to indicate foliage in their drawings. Planted in square and trapezoidal  boxes, some plantings are raised on pillars, too high to see in.  These are not plants to coo over and immerse oneself in, and this is an exceptionally controlled vision of nature.  Wood paneling appears both on the penthouse level and in the ground floor library, two spaces designed to connote a more intimate setting. Nature is more a reference than a presence, though, with metal surfaces and hardware clearly visible through the gaps in the vertical wooden boards.  A reference to nature and to non-industrial materials is perhaps essential in an emphatically Green building, but nature feels like more like a design criterion than a friend here. A gorgeous plant would seem somehow uncouth against this backdrop.

The brightest indoor spaces are the rooftop café and a workspace for kids programs and art classes. The Idea Box, a sort of theater with a sloped floor and beanbags for seats, is the structure that seems to hang off the edge of the building’s outer face. A large window provides a good view of Clark Richert’s organic-geometric design for the outdoor patio, inlaid into concrete down below, on street level.

MCA is a relatively new museum that has high ambitions as a player on the international art scene. The building certainly asserts its difference and its nerve in a rapidly changing neighborhood with few structures to compare it to. Its architecture seems to suggest an institution that is deliberately, emphatically separate, and one that is oriented toward a fairly specific, sophisticated clientele. It is a very smart building.  For the right audience, it is a calm, spacious, refuge of clean, spare design and controlled perception, well-suited to frame the shrewd ironies and in-jokes of contemporary art.  Adjaye’s building sets a very different tone on the inside than it does from the street, and its gleaming, doorless façade helps filter out the kind of untutored public that might break the spell.

Representation may not be the point, exactly, but I often do enjoy it when “pictures” appear. In general, I find that in general, apparently non-objective works tend to begin as deliberate “pictures of something,” while on the other hand, virtually none of the most apparently mimetic works actually began that way. Whatever I try to do, turns into something else, and then I do the best I can to follow it to its destination.

A few of the 111 sheets from The Unsecret Block. The simplest way through each brief moment of animation is to go down each column from the top left. There are many other ways to navigate the block. Movies to come in the near future.