December 28, 2013

My Secret Studio

Shouldn’t every serious artist have a secret studio, one where no one else is allowed entrance except for models, intimate friends, and a loved one? Yes, I emphatically believe this to be so. For me, creating art is a very private affair, and I certainly wouldn’t like having just anyone think they could enter into that process or are being invited to scrutinize works in progress. Helpful feedback in the form of sincere criticism might be what other artists are looking for when they throw open their space, but for me my studio is my sanctuary and only those with a special connection to me or my work are welcome here. I haven’t embraced the open studio concept, mostly because I don’t care to have members of the general art-loving public traipsing through my personal space. Here in San Miguel, the San Antonio art community is actively seeking artists who are interested in joining their group. I imagine membership entails paying fees to support advertising and other forms of promotion for their open studio tours. This smacks too much of commercialism and makes me uncomfortable. I am not a resident of the San Antonio neighborhood, but even if I were I would be very reluctant to join this group. By nature, I happen to be a very private person, and the idea of opening up my creative life to whomever wishes to come inside is anathema to me. If an art collector happens to be interested in my work a private meeting can always be arranged. I have no problem with welcoming someone who enjoys my work into my studio for a private viewing, a one-on-one discussion, and a glass of wine. Today’s fashion is to display everything in public. I’m not a total recluse, but I do guard my privacy fiercely, especially when it involves my creative life.  

December 6, 2013

Dolce Far Niente

San Miguel is a very lovely and vibrant place for an artist to live. Voted as the world’s best city by the readers of Conde Nast Traveler, it is indeed one of the most livable cities on the planet. All hype aside, it has many amenities – historic buildings, cobblestone streets, great restaurants, a cosmopolitan culture, old world charm, Mexican hospitality, balmy weather, and a minimum of urban blight. Artists like me love it here, and with good reason. There’s tremendous creative energy, an abundance of clear light, inexpensive studio space, many support groups, ample places for exhibiting, relative freedom from commercialism and competition, and a general sense of joie de vivre. It’s a great place to do one’s creative work. But one can also sit in the principal plaza, el jardin, soak up the ambience, watch the tourists, listen to music, sketch, or just sit back contentedly for a while and think, “dolce far niente,” how sweet to do nothing.

November 20, 2013

Artists Who Advertise


Several San Miguel artists have been following the promotional route of local businesses by placing advertisements in local publications such as Atencion, our bilingual newspaper, and The San Miguel Walking and Shopping Guide. Many of these same artists as well as others use web sites geared to tourists that list their studios/galleries in a directory and feature them for a hefty fee. It is a world-wide trend. Artists everywhere are using whatever outlet they can afford to promote their work to the general public in the hope that the exposure will bring them clients and ultimately lead to more sales. In today’s competitive climate, the conventional wisdom is that artists must brand themselves. Okay, fine, if they have a style that’s brand-able, but if the work looks pretty similar to most of the other work out there it doesn’t really make much sense to try to “brand” it. Branding should mean establishing the uniqueness of a product or service. And therein lies another issue for me: Style is style, and if you have your own then you don’t need to brand it because it’s obviously yours. Why treat art like any other mundane product on the marketplace? Fine art is above all this marketing gimmickry, or at least it should be. Am I being too high minded? I don’t think so. And what makes even less sense to me, and strikes me as a cheap tactic, is for artists to use a photo of themselves rather than their work, which is what some San Miguel artists are doing.  

November 12, 2013

An Art Museum for San Miguel


San Miguel needs a serious art museum in order to enhance its standing in the international art world. How can the global art community look at this city with any respect without one? Until we have a credible art museum we will remain merely a gathering place for bohemian artists. Exciting enough, I admit, and I don’t see any problem with continuing just as we are. However, if the intensified emphasis on tourism by the current mayor’s administration is a reliable indication of the direction in which this city wishes to go, then we will always have gaping hole in our cultural life. The recently opened Europa House on Calle San Francisco, while wonderful in itself, is no substutute for a museum. No urban center that is serious about becoming a cultural destination can afford to be lacking in a city-supported museum of the visual arts.

October 31, 2013

Dead Art for the Day of the Dead


Art works in honor of Dia de Los Muertos should emphaaize the spiritual over the commercial. Much of the art work I’m seeing around town is much more commercial than it should be. It is dead art. Caterinas, painted skulls, and skeletons abound. Is this respectful to the sacred tradition of the holiday? Families get together to make flowers and use them to adorn altars, they gather at home or at el cementerio to remember their departed loved ones, they DO NOT dance around with someone dressed up as a Catrina, and to multiply these Catrina figures (a skeleton dolled up as a tawdry female, for those who don’t know) does a terrible disservice to the spiritual beliefs of the occasion. You might even go as far as to call it sacrilegious. As art in honor of the day, it is all rather tasteless.

Other subjects related to the holiday are more imaginative and meaningful. Take, for example, my painting “Making Flowers for the Day of the Dead” (see below). I painted this while I was still living in Zacatecas, a city, I am happy to say, that has eschewed or at least avoided the commercialism of San Miguel in this regard. The image is of three women, an old woman and her grandaughters, making flowers to be used on an altar. The old woman looks directly at the viewer because she is prepared for and willing to face Death, who is not in the picture but should be understood to be standing before the group. The two younger women look askance, over their shoulders because they sense the presence of Death but are not ready or willing to face him – it is not their time.

            “Making Flowers for the Day of the Dead”
 
 

October 26, 2013

Catrinas, Catrinas Everywhere


Catrinas, Catrinas everywhere. It’s that time of the year again, folks. The Catrina image is another one (see my piece on Frida Khalo) I’ve grown tired of seeing around the city. Must we have another, larger Day of the Dead Festival featuring oversized Catrinas? We are going to be treated to a parade of Catrinas! Wow! Now we will have skulls and skeletons and Catrinas on murals in the Guadalpe neighborhood. Oh boy! How imaginative! Pretty soon we’ll have them popping up all over the damn place. Help! there’s a Catrina in my backyard! Waiter, there’s a Catrina in my soup! I was riding on the bus and who should get on? A contigent of Catrinas! I was driving along Ancha San Antonio when the traffic came to an abrupt halt and we had to wait until all the Catrinas crossed, a whole herd of them! I understand the city is going to put up new signs reading CATRINA CROSSING.  Isn’t that just delightful?
                                          

    
 

September 17, 2013

An Epiphany in a Courtyard


Sitting in the courtyard inside the Hotel Sautto on Calle Hernandez-Macias I experienced a revelation, the shock of a door opening where I didn’t expect one. I was resting peacefully in this beautiful outdoor space, enjoying the warm sunshine of one of those perfect days in San Miguel, meditating on my good fortune. Suddenly, the objects around me -- trees, plants, arches, archways, tables, chairs, windows, doors – seemed to be bathed in an ethereal light and became transfigured as if by a celestial illumination. They lost their everyday ordinariness and took on a new meaning, a metaphysical meaning, and were transformed into a mystery that I am still contemplating, but without any hope of understanding.

It was like the sensation of a dream, a waking dream, when portals open into the subconscious.

In his poem, Drunken Song, Nietzsche has Zarathustra say, “The world is deep, And deeper than the day could read.”

Dionysus would have agreed, and it is that experience of going out of one’s rational mind that I am trying to describe, when you see the world with the freshness and wonder of a child.





September 8, 2013

Artist Couples


There must be well in excess of a dozen artists couples in San Miguel. I know four of them personally. Is this kind of marriage a good partnership for creating art? I wonder. I’m sure it has its ups and downs, like any other collaborative relationship. On the positive side, there is help with motivation, the support of someone who can understand the creative process, and the immediate critiques from another artist whose opinion can be valued and trusted. On the negative side, there is the competition. Competition in a marriage is a definite killer. And when one partner is more successful than the other it is often a sure-fire home wrecker. A wife who sacrifices her own creative work, as so many have done, in order to raise children or give her husband total support will become resentful and embittered over time.

The most recent example of this poisonous effect came to my attention with a documentary called Cutie and the Boxer about Ushio and Noriko Shinohara, a Brooklyn-based Japanese American artist couple who have been married for over 40 years. Ushio received some success with his boxer paintings in the 1960’s, but he is now in his 80’s and still struggling financially. Noriko’s work is having a second flowering, now that she is able to give it more time. But her bitterness remains. Watch the trailer on Youtube and you will hear Noriko’s resentment for her sacrifices come through loud and clear.

Many of the great 19th and 20th century artists did not marry other artists, most notably Renoir, Rodin, Pissarro, Monet, De Chirico, Picasso, Matisse, and Dali. Perhaps they knew instinctively that it would be a mistake. Better to marry their model or muse than another artist, they might have thought.

The artist couples I know in San Miguel seem to be getting along just fine, but . . . who knows? I hope their partnerships are mostly fruitful.

August 29, 2013

Ubiquitous Frida

The city of San Miguel has become over-saturated with tourist art by artists who cater to the tourist trade. Many of centro’s galleries are overflowing with impressionistic views of city streets and landmarks, so much so that my walks are often spoiled by the unchecked proliferation of these works. The eyes grow tired of them, and it’s gotten to the point where I can’t look into a shop window or read a restaurant menu without being confronted by them.  I can hardly tell them apart – they all look so tediously the same. Sometimes they strike me as having been produced by the same artists, and often I muse that they have been cranked out by gnomes with over-active hormones working at a conveyer belt in a secret factory-like studio driven on by a demonic overseer wielding a cat-o’-nine-tails.
Without a doubt, the chief icons of the city are the Parroquia (the cathedral made of pink granite in the principal square and looking like a Gaudi gone a little conservative), and Frida Kahlo.
Painted and photographed images of the Parroquia show up everywhere, and although the cathedral is an amazingly complex and beautiful work of architecture deserving our reverence, it is and should remain a cherished symbol that should not be overly reproduced. As Mark Twain said, familiarity breeds contempt.
Frida Kahlo is the undisputed queen of this town. Her image is exploited endlessly and nauseatingly by artists of every stripe. Her portraits appear in the lowliest places among the most vulgar of venues, on handbags, tote bags, shopping bags, and bagatelles. And now -- most deplorably -- on a six pack of beer! Commercialism gone mad!  What next, Frida Fries at McDonald's? ENOUGH IS ENOUGH! THIS FRIDA FRENZY MUST STOP!
It’s high time for the artists of San Miguel to place a moratorium on the production of these images. Do so voluntarily, dear artists, before the forces of good taste rise up and destroy them!




FRIDA
by A. S. Maulucci

She suffered greatly,
there is no doubt,
and out of this suffering
came her art.

Much of it gruesome,
some of it grotesque,
but in the best,
a beauty of a brutal kind.

Perhaps we’ll find no word for it
except to say she endured.
Somehow, making portraits of herself
helped her soul grow wings.

Painting with blood knit her spirit,
nurtured it like a tree,
and gave her a handhold
as she crawled through days of pain.

In her pictures we can hear a voice that sings,
not like an angel but a wounded child,
a voice that often cracks, gasps, croaks
with agony but never wails or whines,
endures each hammer stroke
with head held high.

Her soul is tremulous like a violin,
and each brush stroke plays a note
with dignity and with terrible force
as if suffering were the natural course
for every woman
who still has the keeping of her heart.

Nothing strangled in her jangled pain,
nothing tangled, nothing mangled,
it is simple pain, pure and plain,
splattered with grace upon a canvas
for all who have the courage
to look upon her nakedness
without shame.

August 23, 2013

San Miguel and the Global Art Market

According to a story in the New York Times (22 August 2013), the art market is being globalized. Dealers must now travel to far-flung art fairs in cities such as Hong Kong, Miami, and Basel, Switzerland in order to compete and sell art work to the richest collectors. Expenses for this approach to selling art can add up to the hundreds of thousands. Cost of most booths begins at $15,000 and can go as high as $100,000 for a large space. Mid-sized galleries are being forced to ante-up or close up shop, which many have done already, and the rate of attrition is alarmingly high. The Times article states that “the number of galleries in the big art districts has declined in the past few years — galleries in West Chelsea have fallen to 282 from a peak of 364 in 2007; those in SoHo have dropped to 87 from 337 in 1995.”
 
I wonder, will San Miguel be seen globally as an art fair destination? Perhaps it will, but not in the strictest sense. With most of our galleries located in centro and with Fabrica Aurora as an anchor, the city itself might be perceived as a kind of open art fair if promoted in the right way.
 
On the other hand, San Miguel might be overlooked by high-end collectors for the simple reason that we are not cutting edge enough, that is, we do not offer the glamour and excitement of big-city art fairs.
 
I’m not advocating for a gliztier approach to selling art in San Miguel, as I prefer the more relaxed method of individual gallery sales. However, if the future of selling art to high-end buyers is indeed the art fair model, then we must make adjustsments to our city’s image in order to put ourselves on the global art map and attract more affluent collectors.

Here’s a link to the NYT article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/22/arts/for-art-dealers-a-new-life-on-the-fair-circuit.html?pagewanted=1&_r=0&hp

August 8, 2013

EXPOSED

In general terms, the art of San Miguel can be categorized as either professional or non-professional, and a good deal of the art that is shown in San Miguel by non-professional artists is simply not ready to be exhibited in public. The quality is sorely lacking. It does not meet the standards of what any reasonable person would consider acceptable. When I walk about town and see inferior work I ask myself, as would anyone, why is this person putting their art work on public display? What motivates them? Sheer egotism? An overwhelming need to see their name in print? Exposure? Indeed, this is not the right kind of exposure. I feel for them, for making themselves so vulnerable. They’ve exposed themselves to ridicule. People wouldn’t say it out loud, because no one wants to say anything negative, but you can bet that people are thinking it. And like a rotten apple it leaves a bad taste in the mouth, and in a far-reaching way it damages the person’s name and reputation, and it ever-so-slightly tarnishes the reputation of San Miguel as a center for art of the hightest calibre. And when enough people add just a little to the negative, it grows and gathers momentum. After all, we do want San Miguel to be known as a world-class home for great art. So, dear non-professional artist, please think twice and make sure your work is ready before you hang it up on the walls of a cafe, store, or any other venue. It’s commendable that you are opening up your creativity, but you need to work harder to make your art better before you give it a public showing.

August 5, 2013

By Way of an Introduction

The opinions, impressions, and remarks expressed here are mine, and mine only. They are the opinions of a mostly self-taught artist who has traveled widely and has been living in the city of San Miguel de Allende, state of Guanajuato, Mexico, since 2008. That’s 5 years now. Plus one year in the extraordinary city of Zacatecas.
 
My opinions are sure to ruffle some feathers. That’s okay with me. Ruffling is better than stroking into self-contentment when it comes art. You don’t have to read my comments if they upset you. They are sure to be strongly tilted towards my personal interests. I offer no apologies on that score.
 
I’ve studied art history in college and have continued to study it on my own, rather intensely, since I took up painting again after a hiatus of several decades during which time I wrote a lot of fiction and poetry, got a master’s from Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, taught at the college level for 20 years, and published 15 books. At the University of Hartford, I was privileged to be one of a team of three professors teaching a freshman cross-curriculum course in the Italian Renaissance. That was an eye-opener. Later on, I was an adjunct professor at the Lyme Academy College of Fine Arts in Old Lyme, Connecticut, and had many enlightening discussions with my gifted colleagues on the subject of art. When I lived in New Haven, I attended the Yale School of Art by osmosis, so to speak, but that’s another story.
 
So I am pretty well versed in the academic viewpoint of what makes art great. I have also been a keen observer of the art of my contemporaries as displayed in galleries and museums but also in private studios and homes. In short, I am a passionate partaker of visual art. You might say I feast on it rather indiscriminately. But then, I reflect, digest, and reject what I believe is inauthentic art (I shall have more to say on that particular subject), art of poor or mediocre quality, or art that is just plain boring, bad, or trite.
 
The most urgent and compelling question for me is, Why has contemporary art become so fixated on technique? Why has mechanical skill become more important than the artist’s vision, soulfulness, and expressiveness? A virtuoso violinist or pianist who has perfect technique but lacks soul and passion would not move the listener. Actors who have mastered every nuance of the Shakespearean method as taught by the National Theatre in England leave me cold. It is the same with art.
 
Please allow me to state the obvious: There is a good deal of excellent art in San Miguel. But there is also a lot of dubious art, art of questionable value. I hope to comment on both. I will NOT be offering critiques or reviews, per se, just comments which may be off the mark (or the wall) at times, but I hope will mostly strike the right note. You, the reader, may take them for what you think they are worth. And please keep in mind that this is a casual blog, not some formal essay.
 
The issue that I find most compelling is this: There is far too much indiscriminate enthusiasm, or HYPE, for the art of San Miguel, and I hope to put all of the ballyhoo into some sort of personal perspective. I like to think of myself as the voice of insight, balance, and moderation.
 
I’ve posted some of my own work here. You can see more of it at:http://fineartamerica.com/profiles/anthony-maulucci.html