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Jon Johnson's Studio Space
photos by Tami Baum | text by Shawn Rossiter
You might call Midvale painter Jon Johnson the McGyver of the studio space. He enjoys tinkering with gadgets and adapting furniture, tools and found objects to the unique needs of his art. He has a small gadget made of a magnifying glass and laser pen which he uses to create perfect circles of all sizes in his detailed renderings of marbles. He has converted an old xray machine into an adjustable easel. Another contraption allows him to spin his paintings in a full circle, permitting him to work on any corner he wishes.
Johnson has also brought his tinkering skills to the actual conversion of the studio space which houses his easels, palettes, paints and gadgets. Johnson's space is a two-car plus garage on the property of his 1950s home in Midvale. The two-car garage is made of cinderblock. A later addition in wood was added to the south side and, with its twelve foot ceilings, was apparently meant to store a trailer.
Currently Johnson works in the garage space and has plans to move his working space into the addition as well. He dropped in a ceiling beneath where the garage door swings up and added a wall, essentially sealing of the room from the doors. The doors, however, are still functional and Johnson uses the space between them and the wall to store large canvases. He has a large working area for his painting and keeps a computer monitor nearby to see the enlargements he has made of his marbles. A sink he found at a K-mart going-out-of-business sale serves for his clean up needs. He has incorporated other found bits and pieces into his studio: a pair of old school doors for the exit to the trailer space and a booth from an old restaurant for sitting. The props and tools of the studio have begun to take such a presence in his working life that he has even incorporated them into multi-media works which are an assemblage of a painting of the objects, the objects painted and the tools used in painting.
To view more of the artist's work visit his website at www.jonjohnsonfineart.com |
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Feature: Recently Read
Art and the Power of Placement
by Shawn Rossiter
Sometime last fall I picked up Art and the Power of Placement , an insightful and scholarly work written by Victoria Newhouse and published by The Monacelli Press. At the time, I thought I would review the book for our recently introduced column "Recently Read," but days before 15 Bytes came out I saw that ARTnews had published its own review and I thought better of my idea.
The book has been sitting on my coffee table, collecting dust, but some of what I gleaned from my first read through it came back to me this month as I was hanging my show at Patrick Moore Gallery.
Newhouse is an architectural historian and writes frequently on museums and this book focuses on the shifting meanings given to works of art as they undergo various placements. Newhouse examines the aesthetic and commercial values that adhere to a work of art as it is placed in a commercial gallery, a museum setting, a home or a royal palace.
A couple of her examples from the introduction are enough to show the gist of her examination. In her opening line she mentions Marcel Duchamp who -- "gave one of the most famous and influential demonstrations of the power of placement in 1917 when he transformed a common urinal into a Modern sculpture simply by displaying it upside down in an art gallery." But placement, of course is just as important to classical and Renaissance art as it is to the anti-art antics of a Dadaist. She points out that Michelangelo's David was originally commissioned for a niche in the Duomo (cathedral,) but ended up in front of the town hall. "Had the David adorned the cathedral," Newhouse writes," he would have been a biblical hero; in front of the town hall, he became a symbol of the city government."
Newhouse's examination of the power of placement is divided into three main sections. “The Complexities of Context: How Place Affects Perception” explores the nature of spaces where placement occurs. For example, Newhouse examines the changing placement and fate of ancient works such as the W inged Victory (Nike) of Samothrace. In ancient times the sculpture was recognized as a masterful work and held a dominant position atop the city's theatre where it could be seen for miles. In recent times, it has been in the possession of the Louvre. At first the Nike of Somothrace, in a disassembled state, was simply one of many statues in the Louvre's Salle des Caryatides. But when the top half of the statue and wings were combined and placed on its original and recently restored ship base, the Nike took on a more dominant position at the top of the Daru Stairway. Here it was the focal point of the first gallery seen by entrants to the museum. As such, it became one of the most recognized statues of antiquity. Now, however, the Louvre has been rearranged with the in/famous pyramid entrance, eliminating the awe-inspiring view from the stairwell and diminishing the statue's importance at the museum.
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In the second section, “Art or Archaeology: How Display Defines the Object,” Newhouse examines the shifting meanings of an exhibit of Egyptian art as it makes its way through various museums around the world. Curators from each museum decide how the collection should be displayed in their own building, and the shifting emphasis on pieces and meanings are aptly demonstrated by Newhouse and by the accompanying photographs.
While Newhouse's prose is lucid and her comments insightful, the most effective aspect of the book are these photos used to illustrate her points. In this respect, her third section on Jackson Pollock and modern art is fascinating. “Jackson Pollock: How Installation Can Affect Modern Art” examines the installation of modern art in general and the work of Jackson Pollock in particular. Newhouse explores the presentation of Pollock's work, from site-specific exhibitions to the varying gallery, personal and museum presentations.
One of Newhouse's most striking arguments in this essay is that more wall space is not always better. Case in point is Pollock's Echo: Number 25, purchased by Ben Heller and hung in his New York apartment with the help of Pollock. Newhouse shows the same work as it appears in an exhibition of the collection of Mr. and Mrs. Ben Heller at the California Palace of the Legion of Honor in San Fransisco. In this exhibition, the piece is hung at the end of a long hall, on a large white while with many feet of empty space surrounding it -- the type of presentation coveted by most artists these days.
This showing of works in expansive rooms with plenty of wall space has become the standard for contemporary art galleries and museums. Visit the auto-body shops turned galleries in New York's Chelsea District and you'll see that it has almost become a fetish, with maybe four works on a wall that could easily handle ten. But as Newhouse shows in her book, this manner of showing, at least in the case of Pollock, hurts rather than helps the work. Museum settings for modern works can become "antiseptic space" lacking the architectural setting to hold modern pieces together and diluting the power of scale.
With a final section, “Placing Art,” Newhouse provides some suggestions and considerations for hanging works in gallery, museum and home settings.
I think anyone interested in art -- whether they are an artist, a gallery owner or a collector placing work in their own home -- will find much to appreciate in Newhouse's book. The scholarly analysis is insightful and the gems of information -- the impressionists placed their work in plain white frames; Sidney Janis once hung a Pollock on the ceiling; Frank Stella says you can read two paintings together but never three -- sparkle. The illiterate could learn much simply by looking at the illustrations without the commentary, but Newhouse's prose is strong, her anecdotes entertaining and her insights compelling.
15 Bytes is published monthly by Artists of Utah, a 501 (c) 3 non-profit organization located in Salt Lake City Utah. The opinions expressed in these articles are those of the contributors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of 15 Bytes or Artists of Utah.
Editor: Shawn Rossiter
Assitant Editor: Laura Durham
You can contact 15 Bytes at artistsofutah@netzero.net
If you have enjoyed this edition of 15 Bytes, please consider contributing to the magazine or becoming an underwriter.
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Husband and wife artists Clay and Rebecca Wagstaff from Tropic, Utah, showing this month at Finch Lane Gallery.
Rebecca:
1)What hangs above your mantel?
We don't have a mantel, but there is a very nice, large, graphite drawing by Clay Wagstaff in the living room.
2) If you could choose any artist (living or dead) to paint or sculpt your portrait, who would it be?
Vermeer--I just love how he translated his world into his beautiful, clear, painting style.
3) What are you reading lately?
Well, I like to read and we are teaching our daughters at home so I probably shouldn't give a complete list. Some titles we have read/listened to recently include Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, Autobiography of Parley P. Pratt, A Thousand and One Nights (Sir Richard Burton, trans.), Whatever Happened to Penny Candy, Lee in Virginia, first three volumes of History of the World (Susan Wise Bauer) and the Old Testament. My personal recent reading is Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling and Nibley
Clay:
1) What are you reading lately?
What Rebecca said.
2)What hangs above your mantel?
No mantel but there is a european mount mule deer skull & antlers and a small lithograph on the wall where the chimney passes through the living room.
3) If you could choose any artist (living or dead) to paint or sculpt your portrait, who would it be?
An etching by Rembrandt because I love his etchings--they blow me away.
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