Thanks Robert for letting me into your world and all the wonderful connections we got to experience together.
I learnt about Robert C Morgan long before I had the pleasure of meeting him. His book The End of the Art World was a wonderful commentary on the downslope of serious art as he saw it. I enjoyed it as I learnt about so many aspects of art and the art world as he saw it.
Definitely About Robert C. Morgan
I first knew of Robert C. Morgan like many, through his writings. It’s hard to remember the moment I learnt of RCM, but the important thing is the journey that learning about him sent me on. After all the years of reading his essays and books (of which I have many) I finally learnt about his paintings.
September 5th, 2012, I had been in NYC for more interviews that I had been working on for my filming project I had at one time thought would be like a re-ignition of the great Emil De Antonio film Painters Painting, just with a new generation of artists. I was staying with painter Louise P. Sloane in Great Neck and driving my car around, which I don’t do anymore after spending almost $50 to park to visit a friend in the 70’s. This evening we were visiting the galleries on the Lower East Side, and after visiting a few we headed over to Grand Street to Strauss Gallery to see the exhibition going on there. Whilst reaching top floor we met up with writer James Panero and discussed his being in the film. Within moments of our dialog, as usually happens on Opening Night, Louise saw Robert C. Morgan and went to talk with him while I chatted with James. Once he left I went back to visiting the exhibition. It had to be a minute later my viewing was blessed with my first engagement with Robert C. Morgan. I was so surprised when he came over in his brown suit so enthusiastically of being filmed in the documentary that I was honored and a bit flabbergasted in saying Yes. It was such an honor to be approached like he did, that the memory of that moment will last forever in my mind. As Robert left to visit more galleries, Louise mentioned how James Panero had said in viewing that wonderful moment that I needed to have a crew following me around to film my own journey in making this film. I remember peering over at them while Robert talked with me and seeing their big smiles on their faces like they had been there themselves and were enjoying the flashback to the first time it happened to them. The rest of that night pales in comparison to that moment.
It wasn’t until the next year that Robert and I were able to meet up at his home for the interview, but first he asked me to check out his exhibition that was about to open at the Creon Gallery. This way I could have a much broader knowledge of his paintings since we were going to be talking in the interview about his work and it’s relations to his writings, along with all the greats he’s written about.
Stepping into Creon, the scale of the space immediately hit me, as the intimacy of the gallery was perfect with Robert’s paintings. As you know he enjoys the smaller more personal scale of painting, it made for a perfect pairing of space and Art. The energy in the gallery that evening was one of time slowing to a crawl, making you wish to spend more time enjoying the paintings as if it were your own home. The uses of metallic pigments in his work at first gives off a multitude of feelings, one of reclusiveness but at the same time the paintings bring you in as does the paintings inside a Tibetan Monastery, almost as if you were looking at something holy that had been looked up to as if it were made for healing the soul of the visitor. Personally I have a fascination with metallic pigments and even recall the first time using metallic pigments while trying to spray paint a microphone stand using lifted paint as a teen in my Mom’s back yard. This was a whole different experience I must say.
To use the term Tibetan Monastery Artwork in relation to RCM is utilizing their love of the spiritual along with the metallic pigments in their artworks, instead of the image of a Lama of the ages, this perhaps is the abstracted version of that, employing symbols and line as subject matter, each with it’s own equal beauty. I use these terms because as you know Robert is very influenced by Asian Art, as it has been a passion of mine since before I can remember being interested in “Art” as a small child, back then for me it wasn’t art, it as just drawing that I did, before I knew of Art as an everything.
It was the very next day we got together at his home. This was an exhilarating experience for me since it had been the first time I was visiting someone who lived around Union Square in NYC. Being from Columbus, Ohio and having only visited NYC for the first time in July of 2004, yep, the week before Independence Day. Having only around 3 full days to take this town in…boy was that sensory overload for a man from the suburbs of Ohio that had only a few times before even left his town on his own, yep, I was THAT sheltered. I knew this was going to be a great visit to RCM, as I had been looking forward to visiting my first author, one of whom I had his books, along with being a Painter that makes these gorgeous parables of light and shape. Upon entering his home I could tell from the space that a Painter lived there. Immediately coming upon what I will refer to as a viewing wall, where the painter places a single work upon this dedicated wall where the best light is in order to give the painting the best possible viewing of their work, the newest painting. I knew at that moment that I was going to have a wonderful time talking with him for my documentary. This is a painter of the truest sense. His subject matter happens to be purity and the sublime.
Jeffrey Collins is a Painter and Documentary Filmmaker from Columbus Ohio. He interviewed Robert for his then mega documentary which parts can be viewed on YouTube. Culminating with the inclusion of his film titled “Who’s Afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue” which premiered at two New York film festivals in 2014. Since dedicating his life to Painting in 1999 he has exhibited in NYC at The Painting Center along with three of the last four yearly gatherings at Richard Timperio’s Sideshow Gallery along with a solo presentation in June 2018 in Peter Reginato’s home. Thanks for Reading.
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