Wilhelm Sasnal at ANTON KERN GALLERY

James Kalm was back in midtown for the first time in nearly a year, doggin’ the East Side, when he stumbles into the “preopening” of Wilhelm Sasnal’s “New Paintings and a Film” at Anton Kern on East 55th Street. These paintings float in an undifferentiated, and nonchalant world of visual tropes, grabbing images from recent art history, and juxtaposing them with I-phone and internet pics of happenings in California culture. The spontaneous, and casual process of fabricating these paintings might be analogous to the conceptual manifold and disinterested approach Sasnal is known for. This program was recorded April 8, 2021. A musical intro is provided by The Sammy Buttons Experience.#jameskalmreport #jameskalmroughcut #lorenmunk

[@patrickcareyart4080]

Thanks James and Kate!

[@ap8211]

The heavy breathing is an essential aspect of these vids

[@jameskalm]

Thank you, I spend a lot of time auditioning breath-over actors, working with sound engineers, breathing coaches, and editing the audio into the programs. It's gratifying to know people notice...

[@mementomatrix]

sound like a stencil over the words

[@studiofsg9221]

funny

[@jonasd0702]

appreciate your constant uploads james, great video, greetings from germany!

[@martinoulthwaite7327]

How refreshing to see a painter with imagination; whose works are not all the same and/or resemble something by William Morris! Great job, as always, James. Thank You.

[@Billart]

Philip Guston visited me twice in my then 74 Grand Street street level spacious studio in SoHo circa 1976 because of sculptor Reuben Kadish & another close friend of Jackson Pollock. I then attended Philips last 2 while living openings at David McKee Gallery which was first on the Mezzanine of the Barbizon Hotel where movie stars used to dance. idid an ambitious video documentary of a Guston opening at McKee Gallery circa 2004 doing many interviews of writers & artist friends who knew him very well. I found a lookalike Guston artist to play Philip in my "PollockSquared" Indie Feature shot over several yers some at tge pL House in the Springs to be finally released in a few months & possibly on Netflix - with a large cast including a Lee Krasner & a de Kooning, a Greenberg, etc.

[@brianbuday8639]

I like the magpie approach. The big untitled black geometric on pale background is outstanding. Very nice !!😎👍🇨🇦

[@georgehudson8572]

Hello......... how are you doing 😘

[@arjayfritzponcardasart]

Hi james, great to see a show like this. Great work in your report. Hope to see more of it. Take care out there.

[@thirdrockjul2224]

Thank you Kate

[@cradlecap123]

love the busker pre-amble

[@henrybogle8437]

Not the knockout show of a decade ago, but still very strong. That little 'Mondrian' still life really shows his touch. One of the best conceptual painters out there.

[@hans-jurgenschroder9296]

Hello James , thanks from German west province Low Rhine for your videos behind the scene, specially like your driving with bike when galleries were closed in Covid time. By the way....Little Portrait of Young Woman doesn‘t look like one of RAF female members like Ulrike Meinhof or Gudrun Ensslin.

[@studiofsg9221]

chilled, informed but wonderfully unpretentious review....thanks from London

[@marilynburke7609]

Enjoyed the show. The music was great. 😊❤️

[@bobjones7965]

Interesting show! Like the large (Bush painting) with the expressive black paint! Thanks to you and Kate again for the great reporting. Hope to get a chance to meet you at a show in N.Y. someday. The old abstract painter from North Carolina.

[@jhb61249]

I moved to NYC in 1987. I left 3 years later. It appears that much has changed, yet it's still the same as before. Good, bad, ugly, beautiful, hard, and more.

[@svanteostlund174]

Wilhelm sasnal the polish painter. He shows that we artists in different countries around the ar needed. So the rest of is can see the world around us with eyes other than News tv. Svante Östlund gothenburg sweden. Art is magic

[@patrickcareyart4080]

The bicycle figure reminds me of the character out of the movie ET.😏

[@kydop6128]

Great Polish painter! Would love to see a Sasnal, Doig, Oehlen and Kippenberger groupd show!

[@curiousperson6275]

Thank you Kate and James now back to the show. I find Sasnal's work quite shallow and lacking in imagination somewhat like skating on thin ice and pretending to be serious. A Polish Painter? Yeah, only because he is from Poland ( looking at the work he could be from anywhere on the planet) .Sasnal is from a Post Communist generation (Post 1989). This was a time when the powers that be decided to make Poland join the West.Sasnal is one of their promoted Poster Boys along with many young artists cynically hyped by the art establishment of Poland and New York to project the New image of a Post communist Poland. To see a sampling of serious Polish Art I suggest you look at the work of the Post War (WW2 generation) of artists. You will never want to look at a Sasnal again and you may even consider skating on solid ice.

[@jameskalm]

Thanks for this thoughtful and provocative response. Yes, there does seems to be an international current of "superficial" painters. Perhaps this is just a reflection of contemporary society?

[@curiousperson6275]

@@jameskalm Hello James, thanks for replying to the "Cat" down under.There is more to these type of shows than meets the eye.The people that promote some of these artists (useful idiots) have their "Culture/Political Agendas". "Superficial Painters"? These two words sum up that reviewed show. I'm calling it out as I see it and for what it is. James you know what good and serious painting is . I especially enjoyed some of your recent and past reviews of Soutine, Aurebach and Stuart Davis. I think you know what I meam.

[@jameskalm]

@@curiousperson6275 The fact that you've spent this amount of time and energy thinking about, and responding to Sasnal's work, says something about its significance. As much as one might enjoy "Soutine, Aurbach and Stuart Davis", they're all from the last millennium. "Cultural/Political Agendas" and the commercial market aside, things always move forward...People said the same things about Pop Art ("superficial" painters).

[@rrupurrs7213]

I'm from Poland and I think James has some romanticized views about Europe. I really have no f*cking idea what the political message behind Sasnal work is or what he refers to. But I'm sure he has very serious and sophisticated views about what it all means to him and everybody in Poland, lol. Not that he cares - he just knows what impresses folks from the West.

[@artbyty]

Thanks Kate! Awesome video as always!

[@PetervanderPalm]

Dear James, I am an art collector / artist. Because I am not very rich I collect art from starting artists. So I buy what I like not as a future investment. That is why I often visit the studio of the artist himself. I never buy from a gallery. I got the idea to ask you to make a video of this group of artists in NYC. Because of the covid 19 I can't come myself for the time being, I thought this might be an idea for your channel. I would really appreciate that. Greetings Peter Palm Holland Rotterdam.

[@PetervanderPalm]

I forget this they say, I love to watch your video channel. You really have knowledge and I learn a lot from that. Thank you for this

[@gavinyates9189]

Thank you Kate, thank you everybody.

[@yvanguillaume8975]

I own several works by Sasnal and appreciate your review of his work. Thanks James

[@henrybogle8437]

Lucky you

[@yvanguillaume8975]

@@henrybogle8437 Thanks Henry

[@culturefan]

I'd never heard of Sasnal, but I enjoyed the show.

[@vinces5751]

James unfortunately completely missed the point of the Roosevelt painting. But I luv his videos. And thank you Kate.

[@jameskalm]

Please @vinces5751 share your insights regarding "Roosevelt". I'm just a guy on a bike, I can't tape into all the cultural references of every painting...JK

[@Irisphotojournal]

Ikea without the furniture and meatballs.!

[@kitglaisyer]

Funny that you say your choice of this artist attracted criticism as he's such a great contemporary painter, reveling in the space where conceptualism meets depiction, and thus the ambituity of the painted mark... Such inspiring, deliberately cerebral work, not in terms of subject matter, but in his illuminating of the alchemy of the art making process itself....

[@italogiardina8183]

Happenings (reference to 60's depiction of folk)

[@slimnics]

is the pencil mark grid a tool to help reproduce the image?

[@wilsons4545]

a Polish painter, illustrator, nice job 👍

[@bschart]

A wonderful painter. Thank you for sharing this. Untitled 2018 looks like the source is a photo of a bicyclist and their reflection. I think that Sasnal is leaving meaning to others. He's certainly owning the paint.

[@Almarigold]

Are you going to see the Alice Neel at the met? Or the Calder at the MOMA?

[@jameskalm]

I'd like to...

[@mementomatrix]

feels very simple in a bad way

[@candeaguilar]

The greatest city in the world!!!

[@cliffdariff74]

JK, is it just me or is the truck load of asphalt painting, 10:43, from a distance, looks like a figure sewing seeds in a plowed farm field? When you asked the trivia question here, that's what I thought you were referring to.

[@kyhxx]

fossils