Gregory Meander

I am wrestling. I am frustrated. I am in love. I want more. I am in awe. So much remains unresolved. How can one artist cause so many contradictory emotions at once within and outside the gallery? This year more than any other, I have been under Pablo Picasso’s influence. As I had mentioned earlier in a Dispatch, global institutions have been marking 2023 as the fiftieth anniversary of Picasso’s d...

Over the last few weeks, I have become much more attuned to color theory by experimenting with water color. I have started to learn my shades, my tints, and how colors work together. In a way, I have been thinking more about color the last month than I have for all of my obsession for art history. Making color for your own art is quite different than viewing it in a museum gallery or a catalogue f...

“The fear of life, the fear of burdens and of duties, of annoyances and of catastrophes! The fear of life, which makes us, through dread of its sufferings, refuse its joys. Ah! I tell you, this cowardliness enrages me; I cannot forgive it. We must live - live a complete life - live all our life.” Emile Zola How would you have your portrait painted? How would you stand? Would you be at a desk? What...

A few weekends ago, I found myself back in Los Angeles - the city of endless signs, roads, and sunshine. I had bought tickets to the Keith Haring exhibition, "Art is for Everybody” when the exhibition was announced a year ago. Keith’s life and work has always been a Northstar for me. He was from a small town in Pennsylvania. He was raised Christian. He … This is a free preview of a paid episode. T...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit gregorymeander.substack.com This week, I visited the New Museum and had the opportunity to explore Judy Chicago's exhibition, "Herstory." While I had encountered most of the pieces in a retrospective at the de Young in San Francisco in 2021, there was a certain element in this installation that caught my attention. Judy Chicago’s impact...

It has been six months since I wrote my last entry on Philip Guston while in Washington, D.C. A friend recently had asked me how my writing was going and she had asked if she’d missed an entry. It was a thoughtful question and I had not stopped to think about why I had not written. I think I took a break. Unintentionally. Often, things happen that prevent writers from writing. We love to make excu...

Artists come in and out of my life, though you can walk through any American gallery in the United States and see a Philip Guston painting. They are always there hung next to a Cy Twombly, Joan Mitchell, or Mark Rothko. And as you many of you know already, I would always choose Mitchell. I will continue to choose Joan because she is by far the better painter. Guston's work is almost instantly reco...

I feel like I did not give visual art justice in my previous post. I mixed in two exhibitions with all the theater I had seen. They should have their own separate posts. I am still trying to tease out the theater from the art from the comedy from the dance. Sometimes the weeks have blurred together and my unpacking all of it seemingly will cross over into 2023. I am learning the more focus I give...

I have never been one to be compelled by the numbers. How might one measure a year, Jonathan Larson? In minutes or cups of coffee? I guess I have found in general quality outweighs quantity. But, what happens when quality and quantity collide? I have found they often do here in New York City. Over the last seven months, I have seen 4 Pulitzer Prize winning pieces of drama. I have been stunned by 2...

Innovations in art: * The ceramic kiln (29,000 and 25,000 B.C.E.) * Stained glass (2700 B.C.E.) * Woodblock printing (618 to 907 C.E.) * The paint palette (1374 or prior?) * Canvas (early 14th-century) * The camera (1826 ) * The paint tube (end of the 19th century) * The typewriter (1868) … And now Artificial Intelligence illustration? (2000s) Read in Artsy: ( 9 inventions That Changed the Way We...

I remember walking into the Guggenheim in February 2019 and rushing to the Mapplethorpe exhibition, Implicit Tensions. I had waited years to see this many Mapplethorpe photographs in one place. All the iconic images were in the exhibit and I needed to see them. The main galleries were dedicated to a little known (at that time), Hilma af Klint: Paintings from the Future . I had never heard of her a...

I have always been a collector. My first collection was books, as I think many children start with their favorite bedtime stories as precious objects. It is one of the first time in our lives that we might feel a part of something that is not our own family. We befriend Winney the Pooh as if he were our friend and we start to get a glimpse of other ways of being. I started a lifelong pursuit of th...

City may be opening this September, but I do not think Michael Heizer considers his grand work finished by any means. Many artists that build at this scale (and there are few in modern history that attempt it) rarely think their work is finished. Nature is ultimately in control of these “monuments.” Those who work with the land and revere the land and test the land like Heizer, there is a sheer wi...

Art and work and art and life are very connected and my whole life has been absurd. There isn't a thing in my life that has happened that hasn't been extreme - personal health, family, economic situations...absurdity is the key word. - Eva Hesse Writing helps me coalesce my thinking. It is not an easy task that you get to just check off on the list. Nor does it stay consistent. Sometimes I feel li...

One of my most profound moments on my travels along the Continental Divide in August 2020 was my time in Glacier National Park. It is by far becoming my favorite park in my psyche, almost uncontrollably as time goes by. Somehow Glacier National Park is edging out the Grand Canyon, as if I ever thought that was possible. My memories of those four days right outside the park waking up to the sunrise...

“Some people stand together Meanwhile, I stand apart”  - A Strange Loop Final SongAs I start my quest to find my own “Stephen Sodheim,” collaborator, and composer, I am focusing on seeing as much theater as possible. Rodeo ’s libretto is about 80% and I just started character development on the second musical (more to come). Considering writing a musical is an endeavor I only started two years ago...

This past week, I went on my third tour of Donald Judd’s studio and home in Soho, 101 Spring Street . (The only way you can see the space is by tour). I love this “house,” which is an old textile factory from the late 1800s. The light cascading through the old thick panes of glass seems as if you are wrapped in the sun’s rays. You can see shadows at play and the century plus wood soaks up the sun...

Matisse: The Red Studio at MoMA through September 10 I am now walking distance from the Museum of Modern Art, which makes my daily existence something of Sophie’s Choice for me. I ask myself, is there some way that I can skip away to the museum even for a moment? It is as if the MoMA collection is like a vortex in the desert lulling me away from the reality of mundane daily life. The great masters...

I realize it is July 1st and Pride month is now officially over according to your Google Calendar. I shall persist with this reflection. I have been known to correct my straight ally friends when June 1st rolls around and they say “Happy Pride.” It is pretty rare that I hear “Happy Pride” on what is historically considered to be Pride. It is not a federally recognized date, nor is considered the d...

Being in New York only 7 weeks, I have been able to immerse myself in theater culture quickly. New Yorkers who go to the theater talk to each other and they all have opinions. In one of my recent chats with a fellow row mate, I have discovered the “two show day.” It is the practice of attending a matinee and turning around and going to a a different evening show. I recently became a member of the...

Almost two years into a global pandemic, it is almost impossible not to see loss everywhere around us. I think we tend to avoid recognizing loss, big and small. Sometimes, the loss is too great, too big that we can’t ignore it. It is easy to get enveloped by the pain and grief. I find some artists use their artwork to work through this pain. How might we use creativity to heal? It is not a new ide...

In a scene of Lin Manuel Miranda’s recent film version of Tick Tick Boom , Jonathan Larson (Andrew Garfield) rushes to the public pool for a night workout highlighted in his song, Swim. Tick Tick Boom was a solo show written five years by Larson prior to his game-changing musical, Rent. It is an emotional and riveting look at the writing process, particularly because Jonathan Larson died at 35 of...

The writer Elizabeth Gilbert recently said in an interview that the lockdown made her notice the everyday acts of caring for herself as moments of gratitude. I think often of what makes up our lives and how to instill these smaller aspects of gratitude. In a week when Christmas consumerism has already taken over a day of gratitude, I feel like the small daily revolution might be held in the detail...

I love archives. I love the the sense of possibility and sense of time. I think most are intimidated by the stacks and stacks of material. I find it comforting. It is not quite the wonder of a wind and water formed canyon, but it has a similar sense of possibility. What might you find just around the next bend in the river? When you are in the archive, it is best you have a well laid plan. Ultimat...

It was the first frost yesterday in Kansas. The first frost of this fall season. I noticed the ice on my windshield had formed. It is a bit later than usual. But, I thought to myself, when are the seasons ever “as usual” anymore in the age of Climate change. It is predicted that there may only be 60 harvests left in America due to the increase unpredictability of seed access, the health of the soi...