hello
February 2, 2008
my friend phil convinced me that i should have a blog. or sort of convinced me. so i’m going to try…
i have contemporary international art galleries in san francisco and new york. website: hosfeltgallery.com. i show a range of painting, drawing, photography, technology and sculpture, but there’s definitely an aesthetic. i like work on paper because you feel like you’re close to the artist’s practice. i like paint. i’m less often convinced by sculpture, but when it’s good, it’s great. i like process. i’m interested in work that unfolds over time. maybe you’re immediately attracted, but there has to be something there that makes you keep wanting to look. i don’t generally like the kind of work that’s made for biennials. i don’t like olafur eliasson…
fso i thought i’d write about the art i’m seeing in exhibitions and studios. maybe about what i’m thinking about when i curate a show. conversations i have with artists and curators and such. what i like or don’t and why. the art market. the philosophy/business/ethics of art… i dunno, what do you want to know?
oh. i have a partner who’s an architect. and a smart guy. we have a 4 1/2-year-old daughter who’s the coolest and a circle of hyper-critical, expert-in-their field friends. no shortage of opinions… about everything.
so this will probably also devolve into a running commentary about aesthetics and film and food and relationships and design. and be a bit of a travel journal… dinner at an amazing korean vegetarian place in manhattan tonight, chinese new year at betty’s house in san francisco on wednesday, installing a show next week to open on saturday, leaving for madrid on sunday for ARCO, sevilla, granada, etc. stay tuned…
a view of my new york gallery, with an installation of sculpture by artist gay outlaw:
February 1, 2008 at 9:34 pm
Hello Todd,
I am responding to your blog! This is the first blog response I have ever written, so I will keep it short. Did you know that ‘curate’ derives from ‘curatus’ – ‘one responsible for the care of souls’? This fits (to my mind) with the role of the artistic curator – because you are guiding our visions, expanding our aesthetic horizons, inflecting our judgments, thereby helping us to understand the world in new ways.
Philippa
February 2, 2008 at 8:12 am
i love that… ideally, art should be the trigger for insight.
February 2, 2008 at 9:33 am
one thought and one caveat. i had a professor whose criteria in evaluating art was whether you would want to contemplate a particular piece on your death bed, the last thing you would ever see. a high threshold and, for me, a life long burden. living with a gallerist and a collector has been challenging and rewarding. i am the ’smart guy’ architect. louis
February 2, 2008 at 9:51 am
who wants to contemplate an object on their death bed? “either that wallpaper goes or i do.” hopefully you’ll have something more substantive to dwell on (if you have the luxury of contemplation in your last moments) than an object.
art should give you the opportunity to see with from a fresh perspective. the only equivalent, i my experience comes from parenting.
February 2, 2008 at 4:39 pm
i totaly agree… seems to me “artistic curator” is another word for parent. think of how many lives you have enriched over the years, not just the 4 1/2 year old.
if time every permits between korean vegetarian and installing shows swing by my new place and i’ll take you to the “new” DIA (detroit institute of art).
February 2, 2008 at 7:35 pm
I want to know why you don’t like Olafur Eliasson.
I really liked his yellow room at the SFMOMA show.
February 4, 2008 at 9:38 pm
OK, so I’m the phil
I really enjoy the voice that you have used in these first two posts. i look forward to reading the posts and comments in the future.
p
February 22, 2008 at 5:20 pm
Todd, I loved this walk through the show, and your commentary is often hilarious. I wasn’t sure about the difference between the universality of phenomenological art and the candy quality of sensational art – the equation of sensation/candy seems clear to me, but not that between pehnomenological/universal. More about that at book club?
Philippa