Bad at Sports » Lisa Boyle

Robert Lostutter at Corbett vs. Dempsey

Lisa Boyle — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 15:23:33 +0000

A rarely seen collection of Robert Lostutter’s watercolors, dated 1968 – 1973, are on view at Corbett vs. Dempsey. They will be for some a sharp departure in Lostutter’s oeuvre, considering he is far better known for his images of male figure sheathed in masks made of bird feathers.

I had to see this show in order to satisfy my juvenile curiosity about the pre-homoerotic Lostutter, and fantasized that in seeing it I would be able to smartly delineate the transition in his work. I would be able to tell, I supposed, exactly when Lostutter turned his back on the exaggerated form of the emotionally detached female subjects of the earliest work and ushered in the arrival of the fierce, clandestine, and virile male figures that would populate his work forever thereafter.

It turned out not to be so sudden. In many of the works during this time, men and women inhabit the same surreal space, facing off amidst geometric zaps and zig-zags. The bodies share not only the space, but also a similar predilection for corsetry and what looks like highly refined, custom S&M wear. Their bodies are also rendered akin, like personalized sensory homunculi, with each the most crucial sexual elements bulging and ballooning with proportional importance according to the artist. In the ladies, elephantine thighs protrude from giant granny panties tightly clinging to barely concealed pudenda. (That’s right, I said “pudenda”). In the men, sturdy, block-like torsos are supported on huge square asses and trunk-like legs, nipples featured prominently and treated occasionally with garments that further accentuate their central role. Now, this might be where I go too far in acting like I see Lostutter’s transition on paper as a time-line mirror of his transition in real life, but I am pretty sure I can parse in many of the works the way in which the male figures begin to assert their dominance. In 1969 for example, a female figure, shown in profile, sports a dog’s elongated face as a protrusion from the groin area through her skirt. But by 1970, who’s wearing the strap-on dog? Big Daddy, that’s who. (Okay, I’ll quit with that, but it does bear examination if you’re interested in such things.) From that year forward, the fecund, monumental females are encroached upon by men with jutting chins in trench coats, mostly tucked subserviently into the scene- emerging from the edge of the picture or hiding behind curtains and camouflaged by graphic elements. This goes on for a few years until, at the turn of the 1970′s, Lostutter dispenses with the gals altogether and trains his vision on more and more intense psychological renderings of vulnerable bird-men.

While not officially a member of the “Hairy Who?” group of Chicago artists, Lostutter existed on the fringe of all the Imagists’ sub-groups and is often mentioned in the same breath. Like them, he eschewed prevailing trends in New York and focused on a tightly rendered, highly illustrated surrealist vision of the figure in space. His work has been remarkably consistent in its passion for precision over the years, even as his figures have softened and relaxed. In these early works, his expert handling of the watercolor medium is shown off in both broad fields of delicately managed color as well as areas where it is fit within tightly knit abstract elements and illustrative details. These flower petals and energetic zig-zags found in the early works would later metamorphose into the brilliant feathers adorning the artist’s more recent work.

This early body of work will be a welcome respite from the obsessive detail that emerges in the work as the years go by (and as fewer bristles remain on Lostutter’s paintbrush, seemingly). If you find some of the more recent work cloying in it’s florid detail and color, the broads in these early watercolors will give you an opportunity to see a more tortured and terse version of the artist’s fetishistic renderings.

What Have You Done For Me Lately?

Lisa Boyle — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 03:32:00 +0000

“My dealer is acting weird,” a friend from New York said to me recently. “Weird, how?” I asked, starting to work on my probable list of dual sided offenses and defenses between the two parties. “Weird like, I can never tell if she likes my work. She keeps putting off studio visits and some other stuff. I don’t know what she wants from me”

“…other stuff…” Okay, so I can surmise that one of two things is happening.

One: this dealer is fixin’ to screw my friend. The dealer has lost interest, found something better, is disappointed in sales. The dealer probably got an early pass to the MFA exhibition at one of the local Young Artists Vocational Schools of Instant Success and has replaced nearly half her roster of artists with youngsters whose installation work revolves around their “like, umm, genuine interest in Hip-Hop culture”.

Then there’s option Two, which is just that there’s a very benign slow spot and the dealer is doing everything she can, and they’ll wait it out and end up happily strategizing for the full blossom of my friend’s career over a couple of Stellas at the Half King. Great. Phew.

Either way, it reminded me of the tense and difficult relationship artists often have with their gallery representation. It seems always to be a vague replica of every high school relationship I ever had: one person liked the other person better than the other person liked them. Many gallery artists are constantly worried about whether their work will be on the booth walls at the next fair, and the dealers are often worried about the artist moving up and out when the first better opportunity comes along. Artist: jockeying for pole position within the harem. Dealer: fawning over the first draft pick she just discovered.

These people are famous for their insecurity. It seems impossible to find a stable understanding between artist and dealer and healthy relationships are as rare as a Very Hard to Find Thing. Why can’t the artists and dealers situate themselves comfortably in a happy 50/50 exchange of mutual career furthering and wholesome fostering of the betterment of art? I can’t figure out if it’s a problem with money or with ego. Is it a simple lack of paperwork? What are the rules and reasonable expectations for this relationship, and can we all get a damn handbook?

In my recent life, I was an art dealer. So I know something about what some artists want. But it’s actually complicated. Some of them want artfame, and some of them want money, and some of them are just content to be named on the list of gallery artists. And I too wanted different things from each of them. Some of them inspired in me a professional quality drive toward museum collections and a place in the most important survey exhibitions, and for others, I knew we weren’t going to make it there, but still had something good to offer one another. In the meantime, they all loved it when I sold work.

Here’s the thing to know from a dealer’s prospective: I want to make money off of you. From the wellspring of your gleaming talent, that which you have honed ever since you were nineteen, that which you slaved over perfecting in the studio for lo’ these last two years. You ate nothing but pitas and hummus for 36 months and now I want to take money for the fruits of your labor?!

This comes as a surprise and great offense to many young artists. But here’s the thing: I want you to make money off my work too. From the wellspring of my talent, that which I may or may not have honed, through various preparator gigs and gallery internments, I mean “internships”, that which I have slaved over perfecting, and eaten hummus only, etc. for.

If a dealer/ artist relationship is balanced, it should be symbiotic (you can decide who’s the whale and who’s the lamprey). It isn’t a free service to artists and it shouldn’t be a free ride for dealers. You make the art, and deal with all the sacrifices that come along with it, and I’ll do the dealing and accept all the sacrifices that come along on this side. For my 50%, I will hang my face over a computer for hours a day, researching museums and collections, turn my ear red and sweaty from making uncomfortable phone calls, pay the monthly bills, design, print, stamp, mail, pack, stay in terrible hotels, and sit in a booth waiting to tell people about you until my ass is numb. You, for your half, will work two jobs that you don’t love, sketch, draw and haul all over the city to find materials for your sculpture. You can hang your face over the canvas or table saw or whatever it is you hang over and then we’ll sell a piece and divvy up the profits. The better you do, the better I do, and vice versa. On the face of it, it seems so simple, so easy to be bitterness neutral.

Too bad some shit always goes down, and soon enough the lamprey isn’t keeping the whale clean enough. And then your dealer starts acting “weird”. So you consider… “What has that snatch done for me lately, anyway? Maybe I don’t need a dealer. Maybe I need a better dealer! I deserve a better dealer…” and so on and so forth. It may all be true. It may be the other way around. Either way, a basic litmus is that everyone should feel like they’re earning their fifty percent. If the formula falters, reassess. But between an artist and a dealer, it’s a perpetual battle of underestimating one another’s sacrifices.

The only truth I’ve uncovered in witnessing a mass of misunderstandings and a long run of dubious dealings is this: if you’re waiting around, an artist relying solely on your dealer to make something happen for you, or a dealer, resting on the laurels of your artists, you will be waiting a long time, babies. Neither of you have anything coming to you. So you’re just going to have to go out and work for it.

Ciaran Murphy at Kavi Gupta Gallery

Lisa Boyle — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 01:54:20 +0000

The first exhibition of paintings by Ciaran Murphy at Kavi Gupta gallery features twelve paintings on canvas, all small or medium in size. They’re painted in a style that’s become all the rage of late– that low key, often monochromatic rendering of disparate objects and interiors, you know the one. The one Luc Tuymans made famous; the one that brought back small painting from the bombastic Eighties. We’ve all learned to appreciate a little meditative, personally scaled rumination on delicate palettes and sensitive brushwork. I know I have.

Ciaran’s paintings do just what this brand of painting aims to do. Well, some of them. The idea is really lovely; what at first seems simply under-described, gives way to a transcendent moment of reverie. That by flinging off all sorts of extra baggage, the paintings may, if done well, describe ever so much more than the ones that contain excessive information. In the case of this exhibition, the effect is achieved so well in a few of the works. “Frozen Tree” is a superb painting. Barely breathing through the flat gray field of color is a vibrant, odd fleshy tone of under painting. The fallen tree and its exposed root clump are rendered just enough, and not too much. The root clump, like an explosion on the otherwise quiet composition, makes the work a succinct beauty. “Storm Damage” and “Circular Cloud Formation” achieve the same thing- calligraphic gestures doled out in minimum, and with confidence. Like a good haiku, if I dare say.

What troubles me though is where the work devolves into forced naiveté, as in “Late Evening”, a small square painting with a clumpy brown hill dominating the lower two –thirds of the work, leaving room for a flat turquoise sky fitted with a tiny sliver of moon. Here it seems like a failed study. He describes only what is put down in paint. (There’s a hill, and there’s a moon.) It’s the difference between thinking about doing (those striated ridges on the hill feel labored, contrived) and simply doing, as in “Seven Sticks”, where a lovely, subtle confidence shows in the decisive mark-making. I’m also not a huge fan of the places in the show that seem overwrought, as in “Hunting”. Let the paint do the work, my friend.

Overall, it’s a good show. I love seeing the paintings all together, even if they represent a body of work in progress. I liked seeing Murphy’s undecided relationship with description on parade and I can’t wait to see more work by him- I have a keen sense that a more signature vision will emerge. And I think it’s going to be really good then.

Those Who Can’t “Do”, Quit. (And Then Write About It)

Lisa Boyle — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 00:16:27 +0000

Why is it so GOD DAMNED hard to sell a piece of art around here? I can’t help asking myself this as I soon join the ranks of civilians outside the Art World proper and close the doors on my 4 year long project, Lisa Boyle Gallery.

Seems I am in fashion though, since a handful of my compatriots are shutting down near the same time. 40000 last December, soon Navta Schulz, Gesheidle and others. Closings here, closings in New York, even my friend in Boston are hanging it up. What gives, you ask? A writer for Time Out Magazine recently talked with me and a couple of the other dealers about this little black cloud and what conditions exist that make this happen, particularly in a clump, as often occurs. “Whose fault is it?,” she wanted to know. I told her in a conspiratorial tone that I had plenty of ideas.

Oh now. To consider Chicago alone, it would be very easy to slide into that familiar unison of voices about how collectors here don’t collect, museums here don’t connect with the galleries and local artists, there’s not enough critical attention, Chicago can’t compete with LA and NY, etc. Actually, it come out as easily as my breath to shout out a mental “Here, here!” to accompany these tired voices of disappointment. And I could maybe also choose to take a trip down the path of righteousness and talk about people who’ve started galleries with seemingly limitless free financial support and how all the successful galleries are connected in an incestuous web of nepotism and homosexual ego stroking. After all, these are the things I gossip about in my spare time (to people who can’t get back at me, of course).

But here’s the big bad bald truth, people: I’m just not that good at running a gallery. No, thank you for your support and encouragement, and I truly appreciate your assessment that I have a “good eye”, I do! It’s just an unavoidable truth to me that we’re being flushed out of our excuses, me and all the other quitters, by the simple fact that there are a few people out there who have been able to sustain important programs and be happy running a successful gallery in Chicago and certainly elsewhere. In other words, it can be done, so there’s no use in talking about how hard it is to do it. After examining this enigma from all possible angles as I sit contemplating in my quiet, ever so quiet little art space, it has shown itself to be a simple organism. Making a life (if not a living) out of selling arbitrarily priced objects that no one needs is a very competitive venture. Not as easy as it looks. You have to want it. I mean really super bad. If you are going to create a successful system of supporting artists, connecting with institutions, and staying happy and successful as an art dealer, you have to want that more than a lot of other things. Like more than a paycheck, for example. More than every single Saturday for the rest of your natural born life. More than healthy exposure to the sun. You have to welcome payment in the form of some awkward social cache rather than in money, and you have to not mind being chained to a desk between four white walls for years, with the exception of those times you pack up your wares, like a traveling salesman, and take the show on the road. All of these things have to be fun and exciting to you. Additionally, should be armed with the knowledge that this span of time from start-up until you can comfortably travel the world attending all the most exclusive art parties will very likely stretch out longer than you or any one else expects.

I know, I know, there is always the matter of the art one shows. I can see it- I can imagine this wickedly brave program where every exhibition brings up weighty conceptual questions. Where shows at Lisa Boyle are all intellect and no charm (craft only a carefully neglected by-product). Each exhibition parading its unsaleability all the way to the pages of the Almighty Artforum. I can see it. I know the program and which artists show there- I lusted for it with one half of my heart. I just don’t want to afford it. I don’t want it bad enough to work another job and dump hours a day into a black hole in order to pay my gallery, and I don’t have the ambition to get a backer and join league with the true business class of art dealers.

I had fantasies of finding my gallery in a booth at NADA or ZOO in London, where all the collectors flock and fight over work. I coveted the idea that I would bring home checks in the amount of 4 months’ rent for each of the artists I showed there. But even with good intentions, I was hobbled by the lack of fortitude or schmooz-ability to get there. Truthfully, I’d rather be perfecting my technique at the Playdoh Fuzzy Pumper Barbershop and writing a book than skulking down Vyner Street in October trying to catch an invitation to a party for a fair I’d never get into. And it occurred to me that I should just do what I’d rather be doing.

Finally, the answer to the question about what created the conditions for this spate of gallery closings is a valid one. As I’ve stated, my reasons are personal, but there is a broader vapor enveloping a lot of galleries in the same genre as mine. The financial downturn is affecting art sales in the lower and moderate ranges. There is also this sea change regarding art fairs’ role in the life of a gallery. While a great load of fun for some people, they have grown over everything like a suffocating mold and swallowed up a whole heap of what an art dealer has to do on any given day. All for the honor of showing work in ramshackle booths along with a fuckthousand other artists. It’s a different job, being a gallery owner, than it was even five years ago.

And there is any combination of perennial issues with how many emerging galleries Chicago collectors will support, how much institutional involvement occurs, and how galleries here can compete on a national and international level. It’s different for everyone to be sure, but I suppose it’s safe to conclude that in general, all that has happened is that some of these challenges have become more pronounced recently (as they do in cycles) and squeezed out the least hardy of us. Fortunately, a new crop will grow up in our place, as we move on to make a mark someplace else.

As for me, I can be reached at the Korean Student Relations office of Robert Morris College where I am taking students to the “next level” using the wizardry of ESL instruction. (On a part-time basis.)

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