GIBSON CONTEMPORARY

Pink Sky~North Shore c. 2050  (The Lessons of Rapa Nui), 2007 Oil on Panel, 45 x 56 inches If the need is pressing and the world is not forthcoming, then vision will dictate how the object of desire can be created (James Elkins, The Object Stares Back, pp 30-1). A picture is not only a view onto the world, or onto someone’s imagination: it is a peculiar kind of object that sets us thinking about desire…. Looking immediately activates desire, possession, violence, displeasure, pain, force, ambition, power, obligation, gratitude, longing…there seems to be no end to what seeing is, to how it is tangled with living and acting (Ibid).     It’s long been said, to the detriment of true understanding, that artists live outside of society; what artist really desire is to understand society. Once they have expressed this understanding in their work, they can begin to make their place in it. The recent paintings of Thomas Frontini are proof of this. T...

This is a complex question and it can be answered a number of different ways depending upon who is doing the talking. Ask an artist and they will invariably say: Why all the artists, of course! Ask someone else professional and they will say: Galleries and museums. Ask someone outside its observed boundaries, and they will say: Huh? These responses suggest the differences between many people in answering a question that can be defined variably. I tend to think of the art world as a complex community of individuals and companies which all fall in line behind the idea of art as a unifying and inspired context. How this results in relationships and power structures is another matter altogether. Each person in the art world must find the best way to navigate it to the best of their ability and sometimes they need help doing it. This is where I can be of assistance . In most cases, the situations one needs to surmount are ones I have experienced, or I know someone else who has, ...