Arte Barrato

Photography, Painting, Poetry, Drawing, Prose, Propaganda presented by the artist known as Arte Barrato

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Spectators 1 and River Gods on a Hill; acrylic, charcoal & gesso on canvas; 60 x 48 inches, each; February 2023

Made for the Naked Lunch show put on by Spring Break in Culver City last year. The Spectators are watching a battle. The River Gods are lounging in a Park on a high hill.

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Seven recent non-objective paintings, acrylic, pencil and gesso on corrugated cardboard rounds, eleven inches diameter: Popova, Malevich, Rodchenko, Dove, de Kooning, Hofmann, Hartigan.  Each one named for an abstract painter I admire, none of them a copy of their work nor an attempt to imitate their style.

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Diez retratos ovalados.   Ten Oval Portraits.

Pinté un gran retrato de Alex Yerena y nueve miniaturas de AM. 

I painted a large portrait of Alex Yerena and nine miniatures of AM.

Avril 2021

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I made eight drawings of Derron Thweatt this last weekend during the two three hour sessions he posed for the artsaveslives group organized by Thomasina DeMaio.  During the last hour he posed for the portrait at the top of the post.  I’ve made many drawings of Derron, but few as satisfying for me in the quality of the likeness.  I hope it was as equally difficult and pleasurable for him sitting as it was for me drawing.

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Otto de los Simios! Ayer hice otro.

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Ottoniel Yañez como Tarzán de los simios

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Benjamin Jordon photographed by Pantelis for Coitus Online 2019

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Two watercolor & pencil drawings made last weekend of Jose Cital during the artsaveslives life drawing sessions for isolated artists and models on Zoom.  Jose is a dancer I had the good fortune to see perform at an art opening a few years back. He’s a beautiful young man and a dynamic model.

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Two watercolor & pencil life studies from the model, José Cital, made last Sunday afternoon.  They’re both from hour long poses, more or less.  José is a trained dancer, though he isn’t in top form at present.  I took photos of him performing a few years ago at one of Thomasina DeMaio’s openings when she had the community gallery at Castro & Eighteenth Streets.  The drawings above are from the artsaveslives Zoom sessions.  José was posing in Thomasina’s basement studio, but she worked from the same camera set up as it appeared on the screen for the rest of us, with her back to the actual model. An especially fine session.

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For Thin Mar Oo's 40th birthaday last week (August 29th) I gave her a panel painting I had promised to make for her many years before, inspired by a Bodegón by Hermenegildo Bustos.  I had given her smaller still life paintings years ago which she gave in turn to her parents, but this one is for her room. Acrylic on panel 16 X 20 inches, August 2020.

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Mario Montez & Irving Rosenthal by Jack Smith circa 1962, inscribed by Jack on verso: to Ira and Rosiland with Love. Recently sold with Irving wrongly identified as Piero Heliczer (not that being mistaken for Piero is dishonorable; they were all friends, Mario, Ira, Rosalind, Jack, Irving & Piero.) I had been looking for a good scan of this particular photograph for the last five years or more, only to find it yesterday but misidentified. Anyone who knew what the two poets, Piero & Irving, actually looked like would never mistake one for the other, but that is how such things are dealt with in the art market,: ignorantly but without conscious ill intent.

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David Lynch Theater Presents:  FIRE (POZAR)

Written, Drawn and Directed by David Lynch Animated by Noriko Miyakawa Music by Marek Zebrowski

David Lynch released this ten minute animation the other morning on his Youtube channel: David Lynch Theater.  He made it five years ago.  I'm reposting it because I enjoyed it, but also because it reminded me of Peter Schumann's work and because my friend  John Bell worked very briefly for Lynch in a theater piece called Industrial Symphony no. 1, presented at BAM thirty years ago.  The really weird thing is the reappearance of the character John performed, a flayed deer on stilts, at the end of this short film, FIRE.

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For Sarah Brecht’s birthday an oval portrait showing her wandering in some Irish highlands.

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Turns out an old painting of mine was in a group show in Lahaska PA celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots last summer and I didn't know about it until yesterday.  The show was called OUT/LOUD and it was curated by my old friend Billy O'Connor of Wessel O'Connor Gallery.  Anyway, it was a great honor to see my name listed between Warhol and Wojnarowicz..  The painting is from 1998 and it's based on some images from Elem Klimov's great film about the Nazi invasion of Belarus: Come and See.  My painting is called: Scrubbing the Big Cauldron.

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John Baldessari (June 17, 1931 – January 2, 2020) RIP. Wrong, the Spectator & this is Bad (1967)

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Two watercolor life drawings of Maggie Stader from last night's session at Cafe Flore, 30 minutes each pose, two poses per sheet, the first, second, third and fourth poses. (She reminds me of my friend, Grace Sokolowski, who used to pose for me often many years ago.) After I ran out of watercolor paper, I made a single pencil drawing for the final pose of the evening.

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The best Films about this Decade. Someone posed a question on Twitter, asking which were the best films about this decade that seems to be coming to an end, depending on how you count it, meaning, I take it, those films that best reflect the spirit of these last ten years.  I initially chose three representative movies that I felt best told the tale of our time: You were never really here, American Honey and Spring Breakers, but upon further reflection, and looking on some others' proposed lists, I decided to add: the Dead don't die, Bastards and Twin Peaks, the Return.