robert berlind

tonight, lectures from joshua davis, robert berlind (represented by tibor de nagy) and christian burchard. berlind's work is generally classified as landscape; he showed a series of recent large works made from paintings done on site. he stopped at a slide of a painting of a river in full flood to distinguish between realism in painting that attempts to represent what is seen and realism that attempts to represent what is: a photograph of a moving river captures a frozen moment in the river's motion, thus not the motion of the river itself. this is similar to the ability good schematic drawings sometimes have to convey more salient information about the subject than photographs do.* this is the best slide, a pier reflected in dark water on a windy day filled with blowing autumn leaves.

harbor, 1997-1999

* famously espoused by mfk fisher and applied to the illustrations in japanese cooking: a simple art. ask me about it sometime.