Art Studio America

    Art Studio America begins with essays by art historians about the word “studio.” It’s more of a “city” word, with New York and Paris coming to mind. Today, the artist studios are found in Brooklyn and Berlin, though Brooklyn’s position as the hub of the art studio may soon be over. Artist spaces were always in old factories, because they were the only way to get huge rooms at low cost. First it was Soho, then it was Chelsea, then it was Brooklyn, and it remains to be seen if the Bronx will be next. Artist studios eventually make the neighborhood more stylish, and the artists get priced out. But keep in mind that the Soho art scene began with a profit-making enterprise, such as 80 Wooster Street. If George Macuinas had not bought the building and sold the apartments to artists, then none of them would’ve had studio space.

    Not all of the artists in this book work out of a city. Donald Judd, for instance, has a studio in Marfa, Texas, a place where you’d least expect an art exhibit. On one hand it’s dirt cheap, but on the other hand, the art connoisseurs don’t live there. Some, like Ed Moses, work in “cool” places like Venice, California, but this is unusual for an artist. Venice is one of the priciest parts of Los Angeles, and it’s unlikely that an artist could find an affordable place there. Artis Lane lives and works in West LA, but she does her sculptures in her kitchen.

    Artis Lane should have a book or movie all about herself, because her story is fascinating.  She was born in a Canadian town called North Buxton, a stop on the Underground Railroad, and taught herself to sculpt with local river clay. Then she went to art school in Michigan, and paid her rent by doing portraits of oil company executives.  If you think her use of her kitchen as a studio is strange, wait till you hear this; she was invited to Switzerland to paint Yeslam Bin Laden and his wife and kids! Unlike many artists discussed in this book, Lane was trained as a commercial portraitist, not as a fine artist. This would be unusual for someone under 40 today, but in the 1960’s, this was the norm. A lot of pop artists, like Andy Warhol, began as commercial artists, moving on to gallery shows and acclaim. It’s a shame she didn’t get included in the exhibitions of other 1970’s photorealist painters like Andy Warhol, Philip Pearlstein, and Audrey Flack. But Artis Lane credits her Christian Science belief with making her avoid hypocrisy.

    Richard Prince, also trained in commercial arts, lives and works upstate in the Catskills. It was no unusual for NYC based artists to move upstate in the 1980’s, thanks to the abundant space and low living costs. Others, like Mickalene Thomas, still live and work in either New York, City or Brooklyn. She has a large studio that she calls her “garage,” and paints comic-book images of Black women, decorated with rhinestones. Others, like Deana Lawson, share studio space.

    Art Studio America begins with an upfront purpose, and that is to interview the artists in their studios. Along the way, you end up learning a lot more about the artists themselves, and the locality, size, and content of the studio tells you a lot about them. Today’s artists, like Deana Lawson, aren’t commercially trained. Artis Lane, who has commercial training, does very small sculptures that are easy to fit in a small studio. Mickalene Thomas, with her massive paintings, raises an important question, and that is how she stores all her work.  I often wonder why large paintings are sought after, when most New Yorkers have small apartments. Even the Chelsea art galleries aren’t that big, so I wonder how they can display the artworks. 

    Van Gogh’s paintings, which sell for upwards of $20 million, weren’t that big, usually 18x24. He could never have transported huge canvases, or bought enough paint to do a major piece. His rooms were always small, so there would’ve been no room for a painting that was 25 square feet. His famous portraits of Dr. Gachet and the local postman aren’t especially large, and since he paid his rent (and doctor bills) with his portraits, there would be an incentive to keep them small. Most of the Frenchmen he gave them to didn’t have huge homes, and while Van Gogh was mentally unstable, he wasn’t crazy enough to give anyone a painting that wouldn’t fit through their tiny front door!

    Perhaps Art Studio America is something of a prediction. The art world has gone through massive changes in the past decade. The digital revolution has altered art photography, eliminating the need to develop pictures. The credit crunch has limited the buying power of the patrons of the arts as well, and according to the book Dark Matter, art today is used more for social improvement than profit. Some artists don’t use studios as all, like the guy in Union Square who does sand paintings on the pavement. Artists who paint, draw, or sculpt small pieces don’t need much studio space either, but that means they’re less likely to show it.

Maybe small works will become the new wave of the future?