Artist: Gary Introne, born 1949.
1967 - Began at The New York Studio School of
Drawing, Painting and Sculpture, from its initial location at the big
loft on old lower Broadway, to its new home at 8W8th Street, the old mansion of
Gloria Vanderbilt Whitney, later the original Whitney Museum, as three
brownstones were joined as one. Lived in the basement, after moving from 509
e11th Street, also as a sort of night-watchman of sorts until Mr. Rush came in
each day at 6:30am. Being paid $16 a week and sleeping either on the grand old
art-library floor or in the basement cubicle I'd constructed from, and
within, an unused, huge fireplace space.
Wordsworth it was who stated 'Poetry is emotion recollected in
tranquility', and I guess that works as well for my art. I spent my times there
in a small glory - working under the presence and the instruction of
Milton Resnick, Philip Guston, Nicholas Spaventa, Charles Cajori,
Esteban Vicente, Mercedes Matter - and her husband, Herbert Matter,
photographer - sculptor David Hare, and others. Also, the wonderful
music lectures of Morton Feldman. John Cage and Buckminster
Fuller showed up too!
Both my 'emotion' and my 'tranquility' were paired with my 'art'. From the
trudging with and building of stretcher bars, to my endless street explorations
of NYC : cast-offs, old wood, found objects, ads, paper pieces, posters and
street art, I 'recollected' my days. That is my art. The straight, yet very
crooked, line - the paradoxical joining of one into the other mixed with
pigment, color and form.
Anyone can identify fringe activity where something is appropriated loosely
(and in art the 'modern' world allows this). It is the artist's activity now,
the academy being long dead to us all. I grab onto stuff, move it around,
reconfigure and transfigure it - into psychology and new drama. Value is added
and influence acknowledged. This is culture making, not some minority activity.
It is what artists do, and how they see. It is not the act of making a
commodity - instead it is the mark of the transformation of the world around
us. I want it to sink into you and become a part of you - and trouble
you.
I like the work of art, and I like the ease of art. It's the easiest hard
thing I've ever done.
I was also accepted to the San Francisco Art Institute, which option I
declined, not wishing to undertake that 'lighter' transplanting. I like the
darker world of my own New York. In 1973, I went to Elmira College, with
artist-in-residence Gandy Brody, until his death in 1975. Since then, and here
then, the rest.
Most important is the line, and then the form, as they are both brought
into play - into something else altogether.
Gary Introne
No comments:
Post a Comment