He draws and paints—successfully—on the SAME canvas.

You can read more on the newsstand. He’s pretty amazing.

The NYTIMES said this, and (cringe-worthy) this. Too bad on that last one. I think I got the real scoop! Just to prove it, here is a shot I took while in his studio.

That piece of paper on the wall—the last thing you see when you exit his door—is a quote attributed to Willem de Kooning, and reads:

“Then there is a time when you must take a walk;
And you walk in your own landscape.”

At the base of a couple of tiny trees: underbrush

Nope, not feeling the burn at all of missing out on all those opening receptions and parties—invitations to which arrive in my Inbox by the hour.

Ginkgo, tree of wisdom (X-small)

Instead, I am snapping photos to prove to you my utter state of equilibrium, to which the (above) canopy of light and shade, cast by a ginkgo tree not much wider than my chest, can attest.
Ooops. how’d that tree-with-wanderlust get in here??

Oh, well, it’s no use.

The above “sempervirens” species may have a sense of constant purpose (these plants are, like, well over 100 years old!), but I, alas, don’t. I often waver. Being only 47 years of age young, I actually believe, from time to time, that my small neck of the woods might not hold EveryThingAmazing there is to see.

But wait, what’s this?

up closer…remember, it’s intimate scale we’re after here:
and then, farther back. Nope, not a sculpture at all. I must have been dreaming of some grand Pallazo.
It’s ‘just’ the remains of a tree; it’s modest age estimate: 800 years old.

That pre-dates Venice’s golden age, and I’m guessing it will still be here after the Vernissage.

Guess I’ll visit later in the summer, when the canals are more…ripe.
Until then, hello: Bushwick!

She was in the last Venice Biennale.

Photo from VVORK blog.

This, by way of explanation, from Kasmin’s press release:

“Die” (2009) is the second of Navarro’s sculptures to respond to the American sculptor Tony Smith’s famous six-foot steel cube, “Die” (1962). Smith’s sculpture was designed to match human scale; he claimed that anything larger would be a monument and anything smaller an object…

“Die” (2009) is a four-foot plywood black cube. In accordance with Smith’s statement, it appears as more of an object. Although the piece is hollow, its mirrored inside allows viewers to look down through a virtual space that extends beyond the actual material boundaries of the cube and into an illusory hole plunging deep into the earth. This spatial effect is produced by a neon light that is installed between a mirror on the floor and a one-way mirror on the top of the cube.

Is the artist paying homage, or just riffing? It’s easy to pick up on the reference to “die”—as in the many-sided kind. But seeing it in person would be the way to see how the artist addresses Smith’s notions of scale, if  at all. More work by Navarro, some just plain formally gorgeous, some more socially conscious…

Images taken from DesignBoom of his work in the Chilean Pavillion of the Venice Biennale:

and

and finally,

Here’s more on that original Tony Smith sculpture, acquiring by the National Gallery in D.C., if you’re interested.

Gosh, true Minimalism seems so warm by comparison to our contemporary take on it.
(Image from slideprojector.com.)