Gravity's Rainbow (Large) (was Re: Salud, Courtney.)

[davemarc]

Drat.  The NYTimes article must've been taken off the website overnight.  

Here's a bibliographic citation:

Harris, William.  "He Dropped Out of Drugs, and Put Them in His Art."  The
New York Times, Sunday,  December 19, 1999, p. 50 (Arts & Leisure section).
 Pull-quote:  "Fred Tomaselli, after a 'below-radar career,' has a waiting
list and fans like the Whitney."  Photo caption:  The artist Fred
Tomaselli, with his piece, 'Gravity's Rainbow (Large)," at the Whitney
Museum of American Art at Philip Morris, in Manhattan.  The artwork is
named for a 1973 novel by Thomas Pynchon."

Selected quotes:

"([The work] will soon be added to three other Tomaselli works in the
Whitney's permanent collection.)  This piece, named for Thomas Pynchon's
1973 novel and constructed out of five 4-foot-by-8-foot sections, is an
exuberant explosion of line and color with beaded swags sweeping across the
surface.  It is remarkably seductive, yet some of its beauty is derived
from illicit drugs, which makes the work highly provocative."

***

"With 'Gravity's Rainbow (Large),' for instance, he began by using an
18-foot-long beaded pull cord, creating catenaries, or chains, on the wood
surface that pleased his eye, then traced them with a white pencil.  Pills
and cutouts were arranged and rearranged, then glued to the surface.  Next
came the resin, squeegeed on and blow-dried, before new catenaries were
etched onto the surface, creating another layer to be filled in.  The piece
took five months to complete.  In a sly wink to one of Philip Morris's most
controversial products, Mr. Tomaselli experimented with using cigarette
butts in the garlands.  Dissatisfied with the result, he ended up using
cigarette butts as stamps to create little circles of color.

"'I'm trying to keep the viewer as off-balance as possible to the reality
of what they're seeing," said Mr. Tomaselli.  'I freely mix the painted,
the photographic and the real as seamlessly as possible in the same picture
plane.  I like the contrast of the hard geometric manufactured pills
against the soft shape of nature.'"

***

Note to Vineland fans:  Tomaselli's 20-month-old son is named Desmond.

Note on the Whitney Museum:  The Whitney Museum at Philip Morris is a
midtown outpost of the Whitney Museum, a major American art museum on the
Upper Side of Manhattan.

Biographical note on the artist currently known as Fred Tomaselli:  He grew
up in SoCal, "spent his high school years either stoned or tripping on
psychedelic drugs," and graduated from the California State University at
Fullerton in 1982.

d.