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by Robert Boyd

I failed to make the 200 top collectors list again! Every year ARTnews publishes a list of the 200 top art collectors in the world. I wonder if the Vogels ever made the list? There are four Houstonians on the list. Laura and John Arnold collect impressionist, post-war and contemporary art--John Arnold owns Centaurus Energy, a big energy speculating hedge fund. Fayez Sarofim and Louisa Stude Sarofim are listed separately (they are divorced). Fayez collects modern and contemporary art, old masters, 19th century American art, and most interesting, Coptic art (I've always loved old Coptic paintings). Louisa collects modern and contemporary art and works on paper. Notably missing--Lester Marks. As far as I can tell, Marks only made the list once--but he'll never let you forget it! (ARTnews)

Data gathering and visualization for art historians. If there was ever a field that seems like it would not particularly benefit from modern data visualization techniques, it's art history. But Jerry Saltz has initiated a project that will probably prove me wrong. He is gathering a list of all artists who have worked for other artists. His criteria are:

1. At least one of the names in each paring should have a modicum of recognition.
2. Please, only artists who worked for other artists, not artists who worked for galleries, dealers who worked for other dealers, or artists who worked at museums — or DIA.
3. The chart will be all post-war artists.

The "chart" he refers to is the data visualization. The simple visualization would be kind of a family tree or flow-chart construction. But you could add additional dimensions of data--obvious demographic ones (race, gender, sexual orientation) as well as stylistic ones (what particular style or school is the artist associated with). Carrying this back to pre-war artists would also be interesting. If you know of any artists who worked for other artists and fit Saltz's three criteria, add it in the comments section under Saltz's article. (New York Magazine)


George Stubbs, Gimcrack on Newmarket Heath, with a Trainer, a Stable Lad, and a Jockey, oil painting, 1765

$35.9 million for the sporting life. I don't usually bother with auction results (they always seem kind of evil). But George Stubbs is one of my favorite artists--I wrote a paper about him back in college. Our family was surprisingly horsey growing up--my brother and sisters all rode, some of us competitively. That may be why I love Stubbs so much. Is Gimcrack worth $35.9 million? I can't say, but it is a truly wonderful painting. (Artdaily.org)


Art Lies is Dead, Long Live Pastelegram. In the wake of Art Lies, a new hybrid online/print magazine is starting up. It's called Pastelegram, and the editor, Ariel Evans, is a veteran of Art Lies. The online portion will be like a standard art magazine, while the biannual print edition will be full of artists projects. I expect it will make many future appearances amongst the links here at Pan. (Pastelegram)

Surprise, Coagula hates the Getty. And it hates it so amusingly. Sample quote: "The Norton Simon has a far superior permanent collection than the Getty. The Huntington has better gardens than the Getty. The L.A. County Arboretum is a better day in the park than the Getty. The Walt Disney Concert Hall is a better immersion in architectural possibilities than the Getty. The L.A. County Museum has better traveling exhibitions than the Getty." And this photo:

(photo by Mat Gleason)
had this caption: "[T]his beautiful vista only serves to underscore how isolated you and your date are from any food choices available to everyone down there."(Coagula)

Mark Greenwalt at Hooks-Epstein

by Robert Boyd

I first saw Mark Greenwalt's art a year ago at the O'Kane Gallery at the University of Houston-Downtown. Some of the pieces that were in that show are included in this larger exhibit at Hooks-Epstein. In writing about the previous show, I speculated that Greenwalt was influenced by Renaissance-era artists sketches, as well as by the medieval visions of Bosch and the neo-medieval visions of Odd Nerdrum. This time around, Greenwalt provides a few possible clues to the question of who his masters are.


Mark Greenwalt, Molting Ingres, graphite and acrylic on panel, 2010

Can Ingres really be one of Greenwalt's influences? The master of serene classicism, the bulwark against Romantic excess--I don't quite see it. Perhaps, though, what Greenwalt gets from Ingres is a classical foundation, from which he builds his not-very-classical grotesqueries.


Mark Greenwalt, Cellini With Synthetic Figure Drifting, graphite on paper, 2008

At least here the figure looks a bit Cellini-esque. Cellini is usually considered a Mannerist artist, and Mannerism itself, with its distortions of human anatomy for dramatic effect, does seem like a possible influence on Greenwalt. And while Cellini was an elegant artist, his subject matter (and his life) was often quite violent. Violence is implied in many of Greenwalt's pieces. But what's going on with the "synthetic figure"?


Mark Greenwalt, Synthetic Stubbs, 2008

I am deducing that the word "synthetic" in these titles refers to the building up of a figure from anatomical basics instead of drawing from life or from a photograph. In each of the two, we see examples of this kind of figure drawing (or horse drawing, in the latter). When you see the structure underneath, it implies a "synthetic" creation. But does that then imply that Greenwalt also draws from life? In any case, in these three pieces, he identifies three rather heterogeneous masters--Ingres, Cellini and famed 18th century master of horse paintings, George Stubbs. In addition to being a great painter, Stubbs studied the anatomy of horses by dissecting them, which lead to the publication of the book, The anatomy of the Horse.

Greenwalt's work is grotesque, in both the modern sense but also in the sense of strange decorative figures one sees, for example, on Gothic cathedrals (surely a source for Greenwalt) and in Mannerist art.


Mark Greenwalt, Bundles Feeding a Muse, graphite and acrylic on paper, 2010

The "bundles," which appear in more than one piece in the show, seem to be part of Greenwalt's private mythology, and could be classified as grotesques. The existence of a private mythology is also suggested by several of his other pieces, including Systems for Budding Universes.


Mark Greenwalt, Systems for Budding Universes, chalk, graphite and acrylic on panel, 2009

But he is also willing to engage the old mythologies, those that enthralled the old masters he seems to have learned so much from.


Mark Greenwalt, The Birth of Venus, graphite and acrylic on panel, 2010

His groteque Venus, however, bears only a slight similarity to Botticelli's elegant, beautiful Venus.

Two last pieces I want to mention are drawings of enormous monuments, set in forbidding landscapes (a desert and on a mountain respectively). I like the Ozymandian Monument to the Great Propagandist. The image, with one smaller head seemingly growing off a larger one, also recalls the story of Athena's birth from the head of Zeus.


Mark Greenwalt, Monument to the Great Propagandist, chalk, graphite and acrylic on panel, 2010

The monument appears to still be under construction, and the telephone poles leading away from it speak to the idea of communication, the prerequisite for propaganda.

The other monument appears to be a depiction of a mythological creature, a bird-headed figure, carved in stone. We see the head, the hand and the mountain from which it was carved. The fact that the mountain is still rough suggests that this, too, might be an unfinished monument. Ruins evoke feelings of nostalgia, sadness, and a sense of the impermanence of life--this is why so many painters of a certain romantic sensibility have been drawn to this subject. But what draws one to pictures of incomplete architectural/sculptural fantasies such as these?


Mark Greenwalt, Monument with Bird Head, acrylic on panel, 2010

I don't know, but I like them.

Greenwalt is apparently part of a group called Modern Plow Collective, which also does film. Here is a video of Greenwalt drawing a portrait. I don't know if this is indicative of his technique, but it certainly seems that many of the pieces in this show could be the result of a process like this.