OAS Node #1 [July 16]

Dumitru Gorzo: "Untitled," 2009; 14 1/4 x 11 1/4 inches; Mixed media on paper [Courtesy SLAG Gallery]

Studio Visit

[Session 9]

Dumitru Gorzo is preparing for his multi-panel painting project "Heads" to be installed at NJ MoCA. I visited his Bushwick studio in the early evening. We met at SLAG, where Gorzo presented "Reality's Nostalgia." [Installation views are available on the SLAG website linked to the image above.]

A studio visit can be a serious, formal, intimate, memorable occasion for meaningful exchange between artists. I consider it a privilege to be invited to another artist's studio. I won't be sharing much about this one here. 

[STUB/Communique] The point of inducting the scenario here as part of our OAS program is simple. The transmission of ideas, thoughts, impressions, responses, whatever else you might call it, that happens in such a congress between artists is elemental in any healthy art ecology. It is one thing for a young and old artist to concourse, to engage in apprenticeship. As a traditional mode, the old-young transmission might mainly be centered on craft preservation, or the asking and answering of questions, or the conveyance of wisdom. But when two artists as peers engage, it is possible for something dangerous to happen, or diplomatic, if they happen to have unlike origins... [Stopping here.]