Jim Fischer's "Forty-Eight Views of Brownstone Brooklyn"
Exhibition Dates: January 7 - 31
Hours: Tu & Th 11am -3pm, Sat 1- 4pm
Opening Reception: January 7, 4-7pm
Artist Statement:
",,living only for the moment, savoring the moon, the snow, the cherry blossoms, and the maple leaves, singing songs, drinking sake, and diverting oneself just in floating, unconcerned by the prospect of imminent poverty, buoyant and carefree, like a gourd carried along with the river current: this is what we call ukiyo." Asai Ryōi,"Tales of the Floating World", c. 1661.
The Japanese art form known as Ukiyo (literally meaning ‘floating world’) was developed, through the use of wood block printing, as a kind of poor person’s art. It’s relatively inexpensive reproduction process facilitated mass distribution thereby allowing common people to enjoy art. Ultimately, the form, and it’s practice of creating thematic series (the most famous being Hokusai’s 48 views of Mount Fuji done in 1832-34) locked their world in time for future generations to see and appreciate.
This series of conte pencil paintings, created between 2005 and 20015 as a part of what I call the ‘Living With Art’ project, pays homage to the Ukiyo tradition. As gentrification in the neighborhoods collectively know as Brownstone Brooklyn, bringing with it high-rise, luxury’condominiums and expensive dining, rapidly changes these communities, I have sought to lock them in time . The collection of works you see here was intended to be produced in high quality (commonly known as ‘giclee’) prints that could be mass produced and sold in-expensively. Prints are for sale and I hope you consider purchasing one.
Jim Fischer
About The Living With Art Project…
“No one buys art today.” Anonymous Artist
When an artist spends a week toiling over a piece and can’t even get $500 for it there is a disconnect.The disconnect? No one is living with art, seeing it day-to-day, having it become part of their life. It is an artificial disconnect between the artist and his/her audience created by the price the artist must charge to make a living wage. The general public has come to view art as ‘unaffordable’ or, worse, ‘not worth the price.’ The endeavor I call The Living With Art Project seeks to remedy this situation. For my Whistler’s Venice pastel series I devised a method that would allow me to reproduce Whistler’s works using original materials at minimum cost (awork could be reproduced in under two hours). For the Imagination series I scaled down the size, exploited the spontaneity of abstract expressionism (works take literally seconds to produce) and economized on materials to render the resulting works more affordable (under $100). Hundreds of years ago the art of the Japanese woodcut solved this problem as well. For the ‘Forty-Eight Views’ series I, too, am using current technology (the giclee printer) to provide quality reproductions at a low cost thus making these works available to a wider audience, available to live with and appreciate day after day.