No.28
letter from George (7/26/2007)
Dear Rin
Yesterday I went to the Chelsea art gallery district. There are hundreds of galleries there. They all
look the same. The most important thing is the front door. A tall thick glass door with a stainless
steel handle and the name of the gallery printed in white. When you open the door there must be a
white desk with a person there (mostly young fashionably dressed women) who appear to be doing
something important and cannot be bothered with looking up to see who has entered their
establishment. It is not a cool reception. It is, quite simply, no reception at all. But it leaves you
free, on your own. You don’t have to feel impolite or make any excuses if you don’t like what you
see and turn around and leave after a few minutes. Every so often there is a smile and that
unexpected warmth has a good effect. The walls are all white and floors concrete or hard wood.
I spent the whole day and went to maybe 20 galleries. Enough to get the idea. The whole day I did
not see a painting I likes as much as yours.
Generally there is much the same as you would see in any city, only here things are much more
organized and chic, very chic.
We live in a time that has a lost its direction and the art of our time has no compass. It is hard to
know what to do. When I am here, where there is so much art, I often feel superfluous. What need
of one more artist? Or I feel the opposite. There is a great need for sincerity. To work honesty and
create from the heart. To navigate from the inner compass.
You would think that when you come to New York you would see the cream of the crop-the best
but there are not ore than other places. It is generally the same. Here, of course, you must find
your way into the gate, and what conscious or subconscious conformity has to occur for that to
happen? There is no doubt it is the place to be as far as go- as far as U.S. is concerned, but it
makes many questions. Even if one could squeeze in here, it is not at all certain that it would bring
true happiness?
I think that people need art like they need apples and pears. It is nutritional. Message is not what is
primary but something more fundamental which one takes in through the senses and feeds the
soul.
Young people are turning more toward photography and video than paintings. Some of the best of
what I’ve seen were in these two mediums. The videos are almost always collaborative.
The museums have been very good and the city of New York has also been. So many young
people. It is a Mecca for them. And safe, at least one feels safe here.
Rin, please write to me.
So many questions,
Love and Peace
George