Quick post today.
My review of Jeff Williams’ exhibition There is not anything that returns to nothing (Grizzly Grizzly gallery) is up this morning at Philadelphia’s Artblog.
I tried to give a good mix of description and art historical context, without killing myself over it (the piece was unpaid).
Some of my reasons for doing the article:
1. The Artblog is massively read in Philly, so it’s a great way to get my name out there, as I’m making contacts in a new city.
2. The press release for the show was sent to me by one of Grizzly Grizzly’s artist members after she attended a press release writing workshop I ran in the city. It was brilliant to see she’d taken my advice seriously and written such a fantastic release.
3. The show fitted my ongoing interest in the way that modernist and minimalist practice is being reworked by contemporary artists. I always love a chance to open up those issues.
Some of the headaches it gave me:
1. At this point, I’m really too busy to be doing unpaid work, and spent some of the writing process feeling rather resentful and anxious about neglecting paid work.
2. My health is not great right now. I need to figure out the maze of US medical insurance and get me to the doctors (anemia seems to be getting worse, or perhaps the stress of moving countries is taking it out of me). Doing unpaid projects is a sure way to frazzle myself even more. Must cut back!
3. Trying to find images of Robert Morris’ Untitled, 1970, installation at the Whitney is impossible outside of scholarly articles and physical archives. Spent rather a lot of time finding that out. If I’m going to compare contemporary art to obscure postminimalist work, I need to make sure public domain images are available in advance.
Will be back soon with more on rates of pay in the magazine world
Read the Jeff Williams review.
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Postscript.
Apologies for the delay in posting. I got a little scared by this blog’s premise, and how much I will have to give away to make it work.
Many thanks to Charlotte Norwood, a writer in London, for her kind email about this blog giving me the confidence to keep writing it, and to believe that it is needed.
