Cecil Touchon

Fusion Series #3170-79

2012-01-16T11:24:00.000-08:00

Above 6.25x4.25 inches

Below - 12x9 inches

Fusion Series 3160-69

2012-01-16T11:13:00.000-08:00

ten collages on paper 6.25x4.25 inches

Installation Photos from Quintenz and Company Fine Arts

2011-12-18T13:38:00.000-08:00

http://www.facebook.com/Quintenz

http://quintenzgallery.com/

Sneak Peek - Private Conversations

2011-12-12T09:34:00.000-08:00

Private Conversations - Cecil Touchon from Indie Mind TV on Vimeo.

Post Dogmatist Paintings #523 and 524

2011-12-06T22:52:00.001-08:00

Post Dogmatist Painting #523 - paper and acrylic on canvas - 36x36

Post Dogmatist Painting #524 - paper and acrylic on canvas - 48x48

This painting made for the December/January Exhibition "Reduced to Silence: The Typographic Abstractions of Cecil Touchon at Quintenz and Company Fine Art in Aspen, Colorado

Reduced to Silence: The Typographic Abstractions of Cecil Touchon December 5, 2011 – January 29, 2012

2011-12-06T18:46:00.001-08:00

Fusion Series #2388 - 2007 - collage on paper - 9x6 inches

Touchon’s current exhibition explores the boundaries between art and poetry through intimate paper collages and paintings composed of bits of lettering and the spaces between them. Touchon’s non-objective poetic abstractions free words and letters from their service as carriers of meaning and let their forms communicate from a dignified silence in the primal language of visual art. Stripped of literary meaning, these works rely on composition, rhythm and visual movement to convey what is ambiguous and intuitive. Many of these works are constructed from distressed street posters and bill boards found in places such as Mexico City, Paris, and Berlin.
Found materials are distilled and re-contextualized as shapes, lines, and colors through a calibrated use of chance aesthetics. In his hallmark works known as typographical abstractions, pieces of letters and words, once recognizable bearers of meaning, take on a new, purely visually meaning as they are transformed into a design of integral unity. The result of this manipulation is a visual language of poetic beauty, which celebrates the true essence of Touchon’s oeuvre.
These works are an exploration of a classic modernist philosophical issue that dates back to the dawn of modern painterly concerns: non-objectivity and its relationship to the world of language and poetry. One discovers a musicality in these works that conveys an intellectual and artistic rigor giving expression to that realm where words and their meanings fall away, and only the eye looks on in a hushed silence.
Born in Austin, Texas Touchon attended North Texas State University and the University of Texas at Arlington. This highly acclaimed artist has exhibited in galleries and museums in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Santa Fe, Boston, Houston, Miami, St. Louis, and Atlanta. His international exhibitions include venues in Paris, Amsterdam, Berlin, Mexico, England, and Italy where he participated in the Venice Biennial in 2001 and 2009. Touchon’s work appears in the collections of several major museums, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Chicago Art Institute, and the Tate Modern in London. His works are found in many corporate collections including those of IBM, HBO, American Airlines, American Express, Citibank, Delta Airlines, Las Vegas’ Bellagio Hotel, New York City's Waldorf Astoria, Neiman Marcus, Hallmark, and the Sanyo Corporation. Touchon is the founder and director of the International Museum of Collage, Assemblage and Construction and co-founder of the International Post-Dogmatist Group. His work has been seen in dozens of national magazines, design books, and scholarly publications. His art has been used in several movies including: Everybody's Fine (2009), Breaking Dawn (2011), Man on a Ledge (2012) and The Wedding (2012)

Quintenz & Company Fine Art specializes in contemporary art as was well as vintage American photographs. We now feature two locations in Aspen’s core.

Open Monday through Saturday, 11:00 am to 7:00 pm and by appointment.
501 East Dean St., Unit #C-3
Aspen, CO 81611
970.925.2888
Monday through Saturday
11:00 am to 5:00 pm and by appointment

520 East Hyman Ave.
Aspen, CO 81611
970.925.2888
Monday through Saturday
11:00 am to 5:00 pm and by appointment

Txell Pedragosa
tp@qcompany.com
cell: 970.319.1975

Two Works for the Waldorf Astoria

2011-12-06T17:46:00.001-08:00

Fusion Series #3146 - 2011 - collage and acrylic on paper - 18x12 inches

Fusion Series #1917 - 2003 - collage and acrylic on paper - 12x9 inches

These two works to be used at the Waldorf Astoria in NYC.
Via William Campbell Contemporary Art in Fort Worth, Texas

Post Dogmatist Painting #529

2011-12-06T17:25:00.001-08:00


Post Dogmatist Painting #529 - collage and acrylic on birch panel - 72x48 inches

This painting made for the December/January Exhibition "Reduced to Silence: The Typographic Abstractions of Cecil Touchon at Quintenz and Company Fine Art in Aspen, Colorado

based on the 2008 collage Fusion Series #2507

Post Dogmatist Painting #528

2011-12-06T17:18:00.001-08:00

Post Dogmatist Painting #528 - acrylic on canvas - 48x36 inches - based on the 1999 collage: Fusion Series #1444 (below)

This painting made for the December/January Exhibition "Reduced to Silence: The Typographic Abstractions of Cecil Touchon at Quintenz and Company Fine Art in Aspen, Colorado

Fusion Series #s 3155-3159

2011-12-06T17:13:00.001-08:00

Fusion Series #3155 - collage with prepared papers on paper - 9x7 inches

Fusion Series #3156 - collage with prepared papers on paper - 9x7 inches

Fusion Series #3157 - collage with prepared papers on paper - 9x7 inches

Fusion Series #3158 - collage with prepared papers on paper - 9x7 inches

Fusion Series #3159 - collage with prepared papers on paper - 9x7 inches

Several of this type (Iberian Variations) from the last few postings will be used in Banana Republic Stores in SF and NYC.

FS3154CT11

2011-11-30T09:17:00.001-08:00

FS3154CT11 - 20X30 inches - typographic abstraction

This work made for a client of Emily Amy Gallery

Iberian Variations

2011-11-30T08:41:00.001-08:00

FS3150CT11 - 9x7 inches

FS3151CT11 - 9x7 inches

FS3152CT11 - 9x7 inches

FS3153CT11 - 9x7 inches

FS3147CT11 - 9x7 inches

FS3148CT11 - 9x7 inches

FS3149CT11 - 9x7 inches

Fusion Series #s 3136-3138

2011-11-25T21:44:00.001-08:00

Fusion Series #3136 - collage on paper - 18x12 inches

Fusion Series #3137 - collage on paper - 18x12 inches

Fusion Series #3138 - collage on paper - 18x12 inches

These works prepared for Sears Peyton Gallery

Fusion Series #3133-3135

2011-11-25T21:42:00.001-08:00

Fusion Series #3133 - collage on paper - 36x30 inches

Fusion Series #3134 - collage on paper - 36x30 inches

Fusion Series #3135 - collage on paper - 36x30 inches

These three works were made for Sears Peyton Gallery

Fusion Series #s 3139-3145

2011-11-25T13:52:00.001-08:00

Fusion Series #3139 - Collage on Paper - 9x7 inches

Fusion Series #3140 - Collage on Paper - 9x7 inches

Fusion Series #3141 - Collage on Paper - 9x7 inches

Fusion Series #3142 - Collage on Paper - 9x7 inches

Fusion Series #3143 - Collage on Paper - 9x7 inches

Fusion Series #3144 - Collage on Paper - 9x7 inches

Fusion Series #3145 - Collage on Paper - 9x7 inches

collages from the Iberian Variations Suite ongoing since 1986. I started this series many years ago and every now and then add more works to this group. These are 'constructed' gestures. The papers are prepared by painting on large sheets of paper and then later cutting them up and using the material to make collages. This allows me to carefully edit the gestural markings.

Post-Dogmatist Paintings #s 530, 531, 532

2011-11-21T12:27:00.001-08:00

PDP530CT11 - 40x30 inches - collage on canvas

PDP531CT11 - 24x36 inches - collage on canvas

PDP532CT11 - 24x36 inches - collage on canvas

Three works for Robert Fontaine Gallery for Art Basel in Miami

Cecil Touchon art in the Twilight Saga Movie "Breaking Dawn"

2011-11-19T19:35:00.001-08:00

Post Dogmatist Painting #326 - 2007 - 40x30 inches - Acrylic on Canvas

Post Dogmatist Painting #327 - 2007 - 40x30 inches - Acrylic on Canvas

In our little town there is only one theater that plays one movie per week, The Liberty Theater as been in this town since 1919. This week's movie is Breaking Dawn. I had heard that I would have some art on the set of the movie Breaking Dawn so I took my daughter Noor-un-Nisa to see the movie this evening. I wasn't sure what art of mine was used so I kept my eyes pealed. You never know what scenes are going to make it past the editing room so I wasn't even sure I would be able to see it. About midway through the movie however the two paintings above have a nice little cameo (at aprox 1h.17m into the movie).
Before the movie started there was a trailer for another movie called "Man on a Ledge" which, interestingly I also have art featured in. You can see one painting: Post-Dogmatist Painting #475 in the trailer very briefly. I snagged these stills off of Jamie Bell's website: http://jamie-bell.com/

Post Dogmatist Painting #475 - 2010 - 36x36 inches - Acrylic on Canvas

This looks like it is going to be a great movie.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_on_a_Ledge

The Forces for Change

2011-11-18T11:16:00.001-08:00

Friday, November 18, 2011 (collage poetry)

Throughout my life I have been amazed

leaving aside the odd historical accident,

[where] the most intolerable conditions of existence appearas acceptable;

a violence that is hardly noticed, almost invisible [thatinclude]

ways of walking or blowing one’s nose,

as if to give them the appearances of naturalness,

to sense or intuit what is likely (or unlikely) to befall

which is so extraordinarily ordinary.

Taste is an acquired disposition to ‘differentiate’ and‘appreciate’,

it ensures recognition (in the ordinary sense).

To speak of habitus is to include

those complexes of gestures, postures and words

favorite clichés — which only have to be slipped into, likea theatrical costume.

Decorated like a savage with feathers,

an exotic tradition is indispensable

to liberate the forces for change

beyond the reach of introspective scrutiny:

The sense oflimits [that] implies forgetting the limits [of]

the language of the magical transfiguration [of] symbolicconversion:

a language (or a pronunciation),

a style of life (or a manner of thinking, doing or acting)

[that is] perfectly arbitrary and non-predictive,

discovering an approach that will be capable of grasping

the damaging dichotomy between the "material" andthe "spiritual".

Review of fluxus language/taoist geometry by Todd Camplin from moderndallas.net

2011-11-04T12:29:00.000-07:00

fluxus language/taoist geometry
Cecil Touchon/David Carlsonat Cohn Drennan Contemporary through November 12
by Todd Camplin

Cohn Drennan Contemporary has a great eye for pairing artists and this month is no exception.
The gallery has paired theorist and artist Cecil Touchon with artist David Carlson. With a title like
“Fluxus Language/Taoist Geometry,” I feel I can nerd it up a bit with my thoughts on philosophy
and art history, so please excuses my indulgence. Visually this show complements and contrasts
like the push and pull of Hegelian dialectic, but with no clear synthesis.

Cecil Touchon, PDP452, a.c, 36 x 36 in

The majority of Cecil Touchon’s works in the show consist of breaking apart text and letters
into shapes and lines. Touchon is deconstructing text in ways I would image the philosopher
Jacques Derrida might have if he were a painter. You get a sense that each part of the
painting is made of words, but Touchon leaves his art unreadable. Since the invention
of printing press, the Latin based alphabet seems to have run into an aesthetics decline,
unless you are font-head like me. However, Touchon and artists like him have been
breaking up words to allow us to see the beauty of the text. From the cross of the ‘t’
to the curve of the ‘o’, these paintings let us pause upon the letter forms, without
distracting us through reading a message.

Cecil Touchon, PDP289, ac, 54 x 36

Touchon’s application of paint reminds me of the 20th century abstract painting of Stuart
Davis, and the composition uses elements of collage that reflect an almost cubist senility.
I can easily imagine Touchon giving us multiple perspectives of words, in the same way Picasso
approached the portrait. His black and white paintings of lines overlapping in
a kind of gesture of layered writing caught my eye, because these few paintings were
very different from the rest of the show. They seem to be taking the investigation of line
and gesture in a very different direction.

David Carlson - Behind the Sun

David Carlson’s paintings also brake up shapes, but the colors are vivid as a Vorticism.
Carlson’s painting ranges from flat texture to an almost relief sculpture of painted
thickness. White lines of paint seem to draw rounded patterns that are repeated
in the thick colorful relief paint. Carlson’s lines flow and stop abruptly, much in the
same way as Touchon’s work. Carlson also strips out the conceptual and symbolic
ideas for a more material message. These art works are about paint and painting.
The geometric shapes only help to emphasize the different uses and qualities of paint.

David Carlson - Flying Baby Twister

Cecil Touchon has a very intellectual, conceptual approach, where as David Carlson
seems to have a more stripped down, clear headed Zen process. But somehow, this
contrast seems to yield a few similarities that make the two artists complementary to
one another. I hope you get to see this show. And don’t forget to peek in their new
extra storage space. “Fluxus Language/Taoist Geometry,” runs through November 12th.

A commissioned work by Cecil Touchon in the Lobby of 1212 Fifth Ave in NYC

2011-10-29T11:44:00.000-07:00

Janet Jones sent me this Wall Street Journal ad containing an image of one of my paintings in the lobby of 1212 Fifth Ave - http://1212fifthavenue.com

This painting was commissioned through Sears Peyton Gallery earlier this year.

'Cecil Touchon: New Works and Old Favorites' at Emily Amy Gallery - Exhibition Photos

2011-10-29T08:38:00.000-07:00

Below: photos of my exhibition in Atlanta at Emily Amy Gallery by Terry Kearns

Installation Shots from the Current Show at Cohn Drennan Contemporary in Dallas, Texas

2011-10-28T17:20:00.000-07:00

Post Dogmatist Painting #521 and #522

2011-10-26T11:24:00.000-07:00

Post Dogmatist Painting #521 and #522 - each 48x48 inches

This painting made for the December/January Exhibition "Reduced to Silence: The Typographic Abstractions of Cecil Touchon at Quintenz & Company Fine Art in Aspen, Colorado

Post Dogmatist Painting #520

2011-10-26T11:21:00.001-07:00

Post Dogmatist Painting #520 - 36x36 inches

This painting made for the December/January Exhibition "Reduced to Silence: The Typographic Abstractions of Cecil Touchon at Quintenz and Company Fine Art in Aspen, Colorado

Post Dogmatist Painting #519

2011-10-26T11:20:00.001-07:00

Post Dogmatist Painting #519 - 36x36 inches

This painting made for the December/January Exhibition "Reduced to Silence: The Typographic Abstractions of Cecil Touchon at Quintenz & Company Fine Art in Aspen, Colorado

Post Dogmatist Painting #518

2011-10-26T11:19:00.000-07:00

Post Dogmatist Painting #518 - 20x20 inches - collage on canvas

This painting made for the December/January Exhibition "Reduced to Silence: The Typographic Abstractions of Cecil Touchon at Quintenz and Company Fine Art in Aspen, Colorado

Post Dogmatist Painting #390 reworked

2011-10-26T11:17:00.000-07:00

Post Dogmatist Painting #390 - 36x36 inches

This painting made for the December/January Exhibition "Reduced to Silence: The Typographic Abstractions of Cecil Touchon at Quintenz and Company Fine Art in Aspen, Colorado

'Cecil Touchon: New Works and Old Favorites' at Emily Amy Gallery

2011-10-24T08:53:00.000-07:00

October 28 - December 3, 2011

Reception for the artists: Friday October 28th, 7-10 pm

'Cecil Touchon: New Works and Old Favorites' Opens next Friday!

Opening Reception: Friday, October 28th, from 7 - 10 pm RSVP Here
Exhibition Dates: October 28 - December 3, 2011
EMILY AMY GALLERY is pleased to present our second fall exhibition, Cecil Touchon: New Works and Old Favorites, featuring renowned collage artist, Cecil Touchon. The show will include new collages on paper as well as works on panel and canvas from the breadth of the artist's own personal collection. Cecil Touchon: New Works and Old Favorites is Colorado-based Cecil Touchon's first solo exhibition, and second time exhibiting at Emily Amy Gallery. Touchon views collage as directly reflective of his personal experience. He states, “This fleeting quality of papers and messages and the images they contain seems a fitting material for the contemplation of our temporal condition--of our brief sojourn in this world.” Please join us in celebrating the opening reception of this exhibition, Friday, October 28th, from 7-10 pm.
Touchon’s ultimate goal in his art-making is to address notions of beauty through purely visual communication. In this body of work, he does just that. Instead of trying to invent new and fresh concepts and “ism”’s within his own artwork, he pays homage to the last century. Following this idea, Touchon begins to re-examine various avant-garde movements of the last 100 years, including but not limited to Synthetic Cubism, Constructivism, and Fluxus. He views his role as somewhat of an excavator, bringing to light many once dismissed artistic viewpoints for further consideration. Working abstractly through collage and painting, Touchon remains tied to the past by hinting at traditions and practices utilized by the modern masters.
Employing classic color schemes and compositions akin to that of Mondrian, Touchon creates collages that recall the past and harken the future. By delicately shading and manipulating lines, he often creates a trompe l’oeil painting. In his collage process, he deconstructs and then reconstructs elements, which is where his artistic genius lies. Physical objects are distilled down and re-contextualized as shapes, lines, and colors that result ultimately in a beautiful abstraction that speaks to a broad audience. In his hallmark works of typographical nature, pieces of letters and words, once recognizable, take on new meaning as they become single elements of design. The result of all of this manipulation is a visual language of beauty, which celebrates the true essence of Touchon’s oeuvre.
Born and raised in Texas, Touchon attended North Texas State University in Denton and the University of Texas at Arlington. The highly acclaimed artist has exhibited in galleries and museums in Dallas and Fort Worth, as well as in New York, Los Angeles, Santa Fe, Boston, Houston, St. Louis, and Atlanta. International exhibitions include venues in Paris; Amsterdam; Berlin; Cuernavaca, Mexico; and Italy, where he participated in the Venice Biennial in 2009 and 2001. Touchon’s work appears in the collections of several major museums, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Chicago Art Institute, and the Tate Modern in London. His works are found in many corporate collections including those of IBM, HBO, American Airlines, American Express, Citibank, Las Vegas’ Bellagio Hotel, Neiman Marcus, Hallmark and the Sanyo Corporation. Touchon is the founder and director of the International Museum of Collage, Assemblage and Construction and co-founder of the International Post-Dogmatist Group. He has been featured in dozens of national magazines, design books, and scholarly publications.

Collage Workshop with Cecil Touchon in Atlanta

2011-10-24T08:47:00.001-07:00

I was invited to do a workshop this past weekend with the Collage Society in Atlanta. The workshop had 18 participants and I enjoyed meeting everyone. Here is one of the demo collages I made during the workshop using some of Lance Carlson's papers. (6x6 inches)

Cecil Touchon in the House of Winsor Project from Veranda Magazine

2011-10-12T17:46:00.000-07:00

Notice my painting over the bath tub in the master bedroom suite. See the whole project here: http://www.verandaunveils.com/index.html Check out the "360 tour".

Typographic Abstractions by Cecil Touchon at K.Imperial Fine Arts

2011-10-11T19:14:00.000-07:00

Installation View of September Exhibition at K.Imperial Fine Arts
49 Geary Street, Suite 440, San Francisco ph: 415.277.7230
http://kimperialfineart.com/aritstpages/touchon.htm

art ltd. Magazine Ad for the exhibition

Fluxus Language/Taoist Geometry at Cohn Drennan Contemporary

2011-10-11T09:49:00.000-07:00

fluxus language/taoist geometry
Cecil Touchon/David Carlson
Opening Reception October 15, 2011, 6:00 – 8:00 pm
Exhibition dates: October 15 – November 12, 2011
fluxus language/taoist geometry is an exhibition pairing the interaction of paintings and works on paper by artists David Carlson (Arlington, VA) and Cecil Touchon (Pagosa Springs, CO). In 2009, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum presented The Third Mind: American Artists Contemplate Asia, 1860 – 1989, an exhibition that demonstrated the historic impact of Asian art, literature, music and philosophical concepts on American art. These works of art by Touchon and Carlson show that the Asian influence didn’t end in 1989, rather, that its impact has continued and flourished in the formal and conceptual development of American contemporary art.
Cecil Touchon is widely recognized throughout Texas and the United States and has played a major role in the fine arts arena for well over two decades, exhibiting in galleries and museums in Dallas and Fort Worth, as well as in New York, Los Angeles, Santa Fe, Boston, Houston, St. Louis, and Atlanta. International exhibitions include venues in Paris, Amsterdam, Berlin, Cuernavaca, Mexico and Italy, where he participated in the Venice Biennial in 2009 and 2001.
Touchon is the founder and director of the International Museum of Collage, Assemblage and Construction and co-founder of the International Post-Dogmatist Group. He is also a member of the Massurrealist Society and founder of the La Sociedad Massurrealista de Mexico. He has been featured in dozens of exhibition catalogues, magazine articles and scholarly publications. The most recent was published in 2010 and is titled Masters: Collage—Major Works by Leading Artists (Lark Books).
Touchon’s work appears in the collections of several major museums, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Chicago Art Institute, and the Tate Modern in London. His works are found in many corporate collections including those of IBM, HBO, American Airlines, American Express, Citibank, Las Vegas’ Bellagio Hotel, Neiman Marcus, Hallmark and the Sanyo Corporation.
A Texas native, Cecil Touchon was born in Austin and attended both North Texas State University in Denton and the University of Texas at Arlington. He is newly represented by Cohn Drennan Contemporary, Dallas.
David Carlson has had 17 solo exhibitions and participated in numerous group shows from 1988 to the present. His paintings, digital video and digital photographs are included in national and international collections. Since 2000, David has shown his Digital Videos at venues in Senegal, Egypt, Washington, DC, South Africa, Belgium, Turkey, Illinois and Texas. He has participated in international exchanges with artists from Bulgaria, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Germany, Morocco, and West Africa. Carlson has taught design, drawing and painting for 21 years at Marymount University and other local art programs including the Corcoran School of Art+Design and EEI Communications. He continues to collaborate with international artists and in 2007 he joined with German artist Pit Brussel and Egyptian composer Ashraf Fouad to create the installation 'Firewave'.
For more information about fluxus language/taoist geometry or for more information about Cohn Drennan Contemporary, please go to www.cohndrennancontemporary.com or call 214.708.8051 or e-mail cohn@cohndrennancontemporary.com.
The gallery is located at 1107 Dragon, Dallas, TX and hours of operation are Tuesday through Saturday from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.

Write Now - Group Exhibition at the Chicago Cultural Center - Opening Sept 29, 2011

2011-10-02T17:29:00.000-07:00

Write Now

"Write Now: Artists and Letterforms" is a major exhibition at the Chicago Cultural Center, presented by the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, in partnership with the Chicago Office of Tourism and Culture, that showcases a diverse range of recent works by more than 60 artists utilizing letters and text in a wide array of mediums.

Featuring primarily existing work, along with some exhibit-specific installations, the artists exhibited are predominantly, but not exclusively, Chicago-based, and range from well-established to neophyte. Among the expansive survey of styles and mediums is painting, printmaking, sculpture, textiles, photography and video.

Joel Ross lights up the exhibition with his Torture Sounds Incredible LED installation; Chicago photographer Doug Fogelson presents a new work titled Dissolve; Aviva Alter presents Shield, a textile work made of recycled materials; Jason Messinger presents Nine Letterfields, a ceramic work consisting of 2”x12” tiles and glazes on wood backer frames; and Dan Grzeca presents a silkscreen image titled @MayorEmanuel. Rick Valicenti, recipient of the 2011 National Design Award for Communcations Design from the Smithsonian's Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, presents Sumi Calligraphy, an extraordinary ink on paper artwork.

The Fluxus/Visual Poetry Project is showcased in one section of the exhibition, featuring work by more than 100 artists from international Fluxus and Mail Art communities who submitted artwork via the postage system.

Related Events:

Opening Reception: Friday, September 30 from 5:30 - 7:30 p.m. in the Chicago Rooms. The event is free and open to the public.
Artist Talk: Thursday, October 6 at 6 p.m. " Write Now" artists Mike Genovese, Christine Tarkowski and Bernard Williams will led an artist discussion in the Claudia Cassidy Theater at the Chicago Cultural Center. Admission is free.

Artists include: Actual Size Artworks, Nick Adam, Teresa Albor, Dylan Allread, Aviva Alter, Rahmaan “Statik” Barnes, Catherine Bouzide, Drury Brennan, Stephanie Brooks, Tom Burtonwood, Derek Chan, Erik DeBat, Louis DeMarco, Michael Dinges, Dzine, Ken Fandell, Samuel Feinstein, Doug Fogelson, Mike Genovese, Aron Gent, Mario Gonzalez Jr., Dan Grzeca, Matthew Hoffman, Jo Hormuth, Cody Hudson, Industry of the Ordinary, Matt Irie, Carol Jackson, Kathleen Judge, Amos Kennedy, Chad Kouri, BJ Krivanek, Jason Lazarus, Harold Mendez, Adelheid Mers, Jason Messinger, Eddwin Meyers, Ray Noland, Todd Palmer, Jason Pickleman, Jaume Plensa, John Pobojewski, Karen Reimer, Bud Rodecker, Matt Rose, Joel Ross, John Santoro, Zach Shrey, Matt Siber, Nicholas Sistler, Buzz Spector, Christine Tarkowski, Scott Thomas, Michael Thompson, Tom Torluemke, Cecil Touchon, Rick Valicenti, Nathan Veach, Daniel Warren, Ian Weaver, Ian Whitmore, Bernard Williams & Fluxus Mail Art and Concrete Poetry.
Keep yours eyes open for ongoing artist talks and other happenings through the run of the show. The first one of which will be an artists talk with Mike Genovese, Christine Tarkowski and Bernard Williams on Thursday, October 6, 2011 at 6PM at the Claudia Cassidy Theater in the Chicago Cultural Center.

Move to Colorado

2011-10-02T17:09:00.000-07:00

At the beginning of July we decided to move back to Pagosa Springs, Colorado. We used to live here from 1993-98. By the end of July we had the house ready to sell, by Sept we sold it and were able to move into a wonderful home by Sept 15th. Now we are in the process of unpacking. Moving the household, studio and museum is quite a complicated and arduous task. But I believe it will be worth it. Pagosa Springs, while somewhat remote, is an amazingly beautiful place. It has been able to remain a small town because of its remoteness being 4 hours from the closest major airport. The township has a population of about 2,000 full time residents with a swell in population during the Summer and early Fall months because of people who have summer homes or resort timeshares here but otherwise live in a distant city. Below are a few photos from the back door...

Mudpie's MPD Insight - Issue #30 - MAY 2011 - article on Fluxus

2011-09-10T07:33:00.000-07:00

Cecil Touchon collage (red) in an article on Fluxus - Also includes two works by Litza Spathi plus classic Fluxus images including George Maciunas and Yoko Ono
http://www.mpdclick.com/mudpie/magazines/issue30/issue_30.pdf

Figures of Speech

2011-09-09T05:28:00.000-07:00

This morning I was thinking about John M. Bennett to whom I need to send some collage material so that he can make a collage that looks like one of his poems that reminds me of figures. I then thought it would be very nice to do an exhibition called Figures of Speech where poets send a work of visual poetry that used a figure of some sort as the form of the poem, not unlike John's poems. Then I was thinking about him telling me about how he used to play with language as a child, repeating the same things over and over to listen to and think about the sounds of words. I was thinking this was probably his response to being confronted with living in Japan as a child. As I was thinking about John's childhood word play I started repeating the word 'speech' and thinking about it; about the sound of it and what, by the sound it might be related to...

speech spicket
spit speech
peach pit
speech spoken
spokes of speech
spunky spitting
pitting peaches
reaching for speech
speaking spackle

pickle crackle
crumble cheese
speak with ease
bumble bee's
need of knees
speaking spoken
fingers broken
speaking lotion

Shoes or No Shoes Museum

2011-09-07T09:12:00.000-07:00

A pair of shoes with a collaged shoe box by Cecil Touchon in the collection (#1397) of Veerle Swenters and Pierre Bogaerts unique museum SONS (Shoes or No Shoes) Museum in Kruishoutem, Belgium
http://www.shoesornoshoes.com

Two Collages: FS3130CT11 and FS3131CT11

2011-08-25T06:52:00.000-07:00

Two Collages: FS3128CT11 and FS3129CT11

2011-08-25T06:50:00.000-07:00

FS3121CT11 (Commission for Hong Kong)

2011-07-20T17:37:00.001-07:00

Fusion Series #3121 - 32x19 inches - collage and acrylic on paper

commissioned via Sears Peyton Gallery

Two Collages: FS3122CT11 and FS3123CT11

2011-07-20T17:36:00.000-07:00

Two More Collages on Canvas

2011-07-13T12:38:00.000-07:00

30x24 inches on canvas

20x20 inches on canvas

Two Collages on Canvas

2011-07-13T12:32:00.000-07:00

Each 20x20 inches on canvas. These were composed with bits of colored paper cut from new and vintage magazines

Installation at Robert Fontaine Gallery - Miami Florida

2011-07-11T08:17:00.000-07:00

Gallery Link

New Works by Cecil Touchon at Nuart Gallery in Santa Fe

2011-07-09T13:36:00.000-07:00

Nuart Gallery

670 canyon road
santa fe | new mexico
87501
[ t ] 505 988 3888
[ e ] fineart@nuartgallery.com
[ h ]   spring hours
      11 to 5 tues - thurs
        10 to 5 fri + sat + mon
        12 to 5 sun

Gallery Page

Commission for Sears Peyton Gallery New York

2011-07-09T06:46:00.000-07:00

Post Dogmatist Painting #508

2011-06-28T14:13:00.000-07:00

Post Dogmatist Painting #508 - acrylic and paper on canvas - 48x48 inches

based on Fusion Series #3055 - collage on paper - 9x9 inches (below)

Post Dogmatist Painting #507

2011-06-27T13:04:00.000-07:00

Post Dogmatist Painting #507 - acrylic and paper on canvas - 48x48 inches

based on Fusion Series #3056 - collage on paper - 9x9 inches (below)

Post Dogmatist Painting #506

2011-06-26T12:56:00.000-07:00

Post Dogmatist Painting #506 - paper and acrylic on canvas 48x48 inches

based on Fusion Series #2723 12x12 inches - collage on panel (below)

Post Dogmatist Painting #505

2011-06-25T13:46:00.000-07:00

Post Dogmatist Painting #505 - paper and acrylic on birch panel - 60x48 inches

Based on Fusion Series #2228 (below)

Post Dogmatist Painting #504

2011-06-24T16:44:00.000-07:00

Post Dogmatist Painting #504 - 48x72 inches paper and acrylic on birch panel (above)

based on the collage below Fusion Series #3054 (below)

I decided that the painting would be nice to do as a horizontal.

Cecil Touchon in Veranda Magazine July 2011 Issue

2011-06-24T11:35:00.001-07:00

Malibu Home designed by Vanessa Alexander.
a Cecil Touchon collage on canvas (left)

Cubist Fashions

2011-06-23T09:25:00.001-07:00

4 horizontal compositions

2011-06-21T16:54:00.000-07:00

Two photo-montages - same model, two different dogs

2011-06-18T15:31:00.000-07:00

from the series: The Wonders of Plastic Surgery

GROUP EXHIBITION: Allure - The Power of Subtle Attraction

2011-06-18T05:56:00.000-07:00

Opening Reception: Allure - The Power of Subtle Attraction

Saturday, June 25

Presented by William Campbell Contemporary Art

An exhibition of select works by gallery artists will be on display June 25–August 6 at William Campbell Contemporary Art. An opening reception will be held Saturday, June 25, 6:00–8:00 p.m. The exhibition will include two - and three - dimensional pieces by sixteen artists who present subtle yet compelling subject matter via a reduction to basic visual elements. The artists included in the exhibition are Kris Cox, Ken Dixon, John Fraser, Jake Gilson, Bernd Haussmann, Tom Hollenback, Otis Jones, Robert McAn, James Marshall, Brian Moore, Harmony Padgett, Scottie Parsons, Randall Reid, John Holt Smith, Kevin Tolman, and Cecil Touchon.

While such artists as James Marshall and John Holt Smith create pieces of hard-edged, slick precision, others, including Scottie Parsons and Randall Reid, take a more painterly, organic tack. Still others, namely Otis Jones and Cecil Touchon, follow a decidedly cerebral path toward lucidity. Despite these seemingly divergent approaches, the collection attains cohesion as each artist seeks aesthetic impact through an examination of purity in form, along with the interaction among elements and the space that contains them.

Fusion Series #3117

2011-06-17T15:36:00.001-07:00

Three Blue, Black and White Collages

2011-06-17T15:29:00.001-07:00

These three works (Fusion Series #3115, #3116, #3118) made with vintage screen printed billboard papers.

all 18x12 mounted on 30x22 inch watercolor paper

Abstract Expressionist Collage

2011-06-17T15:28:00.000-07:00

Three Asemic Poems

2011-06-17T15:25:00.000-07:00

Four Collages by Cecil Touchon

2011-06-15T15:10:00.000-07:00

Fusion Series #3110 - 9x9 inches - collage on paper

Fusion Series #3111 - 9x9 inches - collage on paper

above: Fusion Series #3112 - 9x9 inches - collage on paper

below: Fusion Series #3113 - 9x9 inches - collage on paper

Cubist Drawing by Cecil Touchon (After an etching by Georges Braque)

2011-06-15T15:08:00.000-07:00

Cecil Touchon Painting in a design project by Jim and Phoebe Howard

2011-06-13T07:14:00.000-07:00

Post Dogmatist Painting #267 – 36x36 inches – acrylic and paper on canvas

In a design project by Jim and Phoebe Howard

Cecil Touchon Collage in a House Beautiful Project in New York City

2011-06-13T06:54:00.000-07:00

Cecil Touchon Collages in a House Beautiful Project with Phoebe and Jim Howard in New York City called

Designer Visions: Cinema Style sponsored by Hearst magazines. They paired three of their magazines with three top designers to create apartments that were inspired by films all set in New York. They include Phoebe and Jim Howard for House Beautiful - Something's Gotta Give; Steven Gambrel for Town & Country - Six Degrees of Separation; and Richard Hallberg for Veranda - Wall Street. They have also partnered with Bizzi & Partners, the developers of The Setai Fifth Avenue and all of the fabulous spaces are located on the 58th floor with amazing views. Each will also be featured in the respective magazines. House Beautiful has already featured Phoebe Howard's creation in the November issue

Two panoramic Typographic Abstractions by Cecil Touchon

2011-06-09T16:26:00.000-07:00

Two panoramic Typographic Abstractions

collage on paper - 6 x 21 inches

Two Panoramic Gestural Abstractionist Works by Cecil Touchon

2011-06-09T16:24:00.000-07:00

Two Panoramic Gestural Abstractionist Works by Cecil Touchon

acrylic and collage on paper - 6 x 25.5 inches

Two Panoramic Gestural Abstractionist Works by Cecil Touchon

2011-06-09T16:21:00.000-07:00

Two Panoramic Gestural Abstractionist Works by Cecil Touchon

Acrylic on paper - 6 x 35.5 inches

Imaginary Landscape by Cecil Touchon

2011-06-09T16:14:00.000-07:00

Approaching Storm - acrylic on paper - 6x15 inches

Cecil Touchon Collage in an Office Designed by Windsor Smith

2011-06-09T06:37:00.000-07:00

Cecil Touchon Collage in an Office Designed by Windsor Smith

Cecil Touchon in the House of Winsor Project from Veranda Magazine

2011-06-08T12:29:00.000-07:00

PDP503CT11 - collage and acrylic on canvas - 54x36 inches

The above painting will be headed out this week to the Veranda Magazine project Veranda Unveils at Windsor Smith's new show case home in Los Angeles. My painting will be part of the Candace Barnes installation. see the project here: http://www.verandaunveils.com/index.html

Designers involved:

Cecil Touchon in Elle Decor Magazine June 2011

2011-05-26T09:11:00.000-07:00

A Manhattan Apartment designed by Alexa Hampton with a Cecil Touchon typographic abstraction collage and two black and white works by James Surls

http://www.elledecor.com/image/tid/6335?pause=0&page=7
print magazine see page 126

Alexa Hampton on Elle Decor's 'A-List'

She was just in her 20s when her father—the great American decorator Mark Hampton—passed away. Since then, this down-to-earth designer has proven her talent with elegant interiors that build on her father’s legacy while demonstrating her own viewpoint. Sparkling chandeliers, silk draperies, tufted sofas—her work eschews trends and consistently wows us. She’s prolific too, designing fabrics for Kravet, furniture for Hickory Chair, and carpets for Stark. markhampton.com
Mark Hampton LLC

654 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10065, 212 753 4110

http://markhampton.com/

Profile: Specializing in high end residential projects, both national and international, this firm has been in business since 1976, when it was founded by the late Mark Hampton. Since 1998, Alexa Hampton has been at its helm designing houses, apartments, planes, boats and even cars. The firm is noted for its eclectic design scope and the high quality of its work.
The above collage by Cecil Touchon was purchased at Sears Peyton Gallery

Pages from the Verse of Uni

2011-05-26T09:01:00.000-07:00

New Asemic Palimpsest poems

2011-05-13T13:38:00.000-07:00

Fusion Series #3070, #3081

2011-05-06T16:55:00.001-07:00

Fusion Series #3082, #3083

2011-05-06T16:42:00.001-07:00

Post Dogmatist Paintings #500 and #501 - 20x20 inches on canvas

2011-05-06T16:38:00.000-07:00

Fusion Series #3071, #3072, #3079 - 6x6 inches

2011-05-06T16:33:00.000-07:00

Fusion Series #3065, #3066, #3067, #3068, #3069 - all 6x6 inches mounted on watercolor paper

2011-05-06T16:28:00.000-07:00

Fusion Series #3054, #3055, #3056

2011-05-06T16:26:00.000-07:00

Fusion Series #3057, #3058, #3059

2011-05-06T16:23:00.000-07:00

Bumpity for John M. Bennett

2011-04-18T14:42:00.001-07:00

Cecil Touchon Art in the Movie; Breaking Dawn

2011-04-16T14:15:00.000-07:00

Cecil Touchon's art will be seen in the upcoming movie Breaking Dawn from the popular Twilight Saga

Visual Flux From Red Fox Press with one work by Cecil Touchon

2011-04-16T13:53:00.000-07:00

VISUAL FLUX: VISUAL POETRY SCREEN PRINT PORTFOLIOS

PORTFOLIO NR 1 - MAY 2010

Portfolio containing 6 hand pulled screen prints
45 copies numbered and signed
Arches Vellum 250 gr. paper
23 x 33 cm
Price: 195 euro / 275 $ / 165 UK st.

GEOF HUTH (USA)
SERSE LUIGETTI (ITALY)
LITSA SPATHI (NETHERLANDS)
PETE SPENCE (AUSTRALIA)
ANDREW TOPEL (USA)
CECIL TOUCHON (USA)

Above print by Cecil Touchon is based on the collage Fusion Series #1531 from the year 2000

New Book: Reduced to Silence by Cecil Touchon from Red Fox Press

2011-04-16T13:43:00.000-07:00

Cecil Touchon
"Reduced to Silence"

Visual Poetry / Collages of cut pieces of posters.
A6 format - 4o pages - laser printing.
Thread and quarter cloth binding
March 2011
price: 15 euro / 20 US $ / 13 UK Sterling
From Red Fox Press

From the collection "C'est Mon Dada"
A collection of small artists' books
dedicated to experimental, concrete and visual poetry,
or any work combining text and visual arts
in the spirit of dada or fluxus.

Cecil Touchon in Atlanta Homes Magazine April, 2011

2011-04-16T13:32:00.000-07:00

Cecil Touchon in Atlanta Homes Magazine April, 2011

Fusion Series #2205 available at Emily Amy Gallery

COLLAGE WORKSHOP with Cecil Touchon - Atlanta Georgia

2011-04-15T07:08:00.000-07:00

COLLAGE WORKSHOP with Cecil Touchon

Sponsored by the Atlanta Collage Society

WHEN: Fri-Sat-Sun, October 21-22-23, 2011 (Fri-Sat 10a-4p; Sun noon-5p)

WHERE: Binders Art Supply, Atlanta, GA

HOW MUCH: $250 for ACS members; $275 for non-members

(Students will receive a supply list once they have signed up and paid for the workshop. Early
sign-up is encouraged. Maximum of 18 students accepted.)

About the workshop…..

Cecil explains, “Collage art is a constructive approach to creating artistic images capitalizing on
the use of found or prepared materials arranged in creative ways to arrive at a final composition
that is often surprising and unexpected. A collage can be as simple as gluing one piece of paper
to another or as complex as one can imagine. A collage artist needs a wide range of techniques
or bag of tricks in order to achieve their vision.”

The instructor’s process….

“I work along the lines of strategy adding technique where needed…with an exploration of the
fundamental principles of design, composition and historical precedent…using examples from
the Collage Museum's collection…we will also explore professional practices and standards,
studio organization, inventory and documentation systems. … I will work with each person at
whatever stage they are at and suggest ways to amplify their abilities and improve their results
and increase confidence. I will be watching for 'stops' in each person that may be holding
back their creative flow and devise ways to overcome them or work around them. I will also
be working with each artist to get an idea of what they wish to achieve through their work as a
collage artist and suggest ways to help them reach their goals.”

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Widely recognized throughout the United States, Cecil Touchon has played a major role in the
fine arts arena for well over two decades. The highly acclaimed artist has exhibited in galleries
and museums in New York, Los Angeles, Santa Fe, Boston, Houston, St. Louis, Atlanta,
Dallas and Fort Worth among other cities. International exhibitions include venues in Paris;
Amsterdam; Berlin; Cuernavaca, Mexico; and Italy, where he participated in the Venice Biennial
in 2009 and 2001.

Touchon is well known in the areas of collage art, painting, visual poetry and as a member of the
Fluxus community. Touchon is the founder and director of the International Museum of Collage,
Assemblage and Construction and co-founder of the International Post-Dogmatist Group. He has
been featured in dozens of exhibition catalogues, magazine articles, and scholarly publications,
the most recent of which published in 2010 titled Masters: Collage—Major Works by Leading
Artists (Lark Books).

Touchon’s work appears in the collections of several major museums, including the Museum of
Modern Art, the Chicago Art Institute, and the Tate Modern in London. His works are found in
many corporate collections as well, including those of IBM, HBO, American Airlines, American
Express, Citibank, Las Vegas’s Bellagio Hotel, Neiman Marcus, Hallmark, and the Sanyo
Corporation, to name a few. He is locally represented in Atlanta by the Emily Amy Gallery.
His next show in Atlanta will open the weekend following the workshop.

Cecil Touchon was born in Austin, Texas, grew up in Saint Louis, MO and attended both North
Texas State University in Denton and the University of Texas at Arlington where he earned a BFA degree.

To sign up, please mail $100 deposit to:

Diane Clark

4198 Summit Way

Marietta, GA 30066

Balance of $150 (members) and $175 (non-members) is due no later than September 15, 2011.

Upcoming Exhibition at Emily Amy Gallery October 28-December 3, 2011

2011-04-15T07:04:00.000-07:00

I have an exhibition coming up at Emily Amy Gallery Atlanta, Ga. October 28-December 3, 2011
The opening is the weekend after my Atlanta Collage Workshop.

Work by Cecil Touchon on display at the Museum of Contemporary Art , Chicago

2011-03-07T15:41:00.001-08:00

This is a Test Test by Fluxus Laboratories - Cecil Touchon edition of 1,000

Tear Test by Fluxus Laboratories - Cecil Touchon - torn brown paper with 'Tested' stamp (unique)

The Wonders of Plastic Surgery by Fluxus Laboratories - Cecil Touchon - postcard with photo-montage - edition of 1,000

New Collages from the Fusion Series

2011-03-07T15:34:00.001-08:00

New Collages

2011-03-07T15:27:00.001-08:00

Two Large Gestural Abstractionist Collages

2011-03-03T19:19:00.000-08:00

Large Collages Using Bilboard Paper

2011-03-03T19:13:00.000-08:00

Seven Songs by Cecil Touchon

2011-01-30T20:21:00.001-08:00

The Collage Art of Hope Kroll

2011-01-29T18:17:00.000-08:00

The Intricacies of the Heart and Its Chambers

Curated by Cecil Touchon

Catalog edited by Cecil Touchon

Copyright	Standard Copyright License
Edition	private collector edition
Publisher	Ontological Museum Publications
Published	January 30, 2011
Language	English
Pages	100

Binding	Perfect-bound Paperback
Interior Ink	Full color
Dimensions (inches)	8.5 wide × 11.0 tall

BUY NOW!

http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/the-collage-art-of-hope-kroll/14712188

(exhibition during the month of February 2011 at the Fort Worth Community Arts Center)

Introduction from the Catalog by Cecil Touchon

The genesis of this exhibition centers around Hope Kroll’s contribution to the Museum’s Fluxcase Micro Museum project which is a series of very small cases (8x10x2 inches) that each contain 50 tiny boxes commemorating the 50 year anniversary of Fluxus. Hope had contributed a number of boxes for one of these cases and I suggested that perhaps she would like to fill an entire case and in exchange I would arrange an exhibition. Once the case was finished we decided to round out the exhibition with a number of Kroll’s collages. These additional works sent especially for this exhibit from the artist’s studio will be on view along with Kroll’s works in the permanent collection.

When contemplating the work of Hope Kroll a saying comes to mind by the early 20^th Century Indian classical musician and Sufi mystic Hazrat Inayat Khan; The mind is the surface of the heart, and the heart is the depth of the mind. Kroll’s work explores the nature of the heart and mind in a way that is playful and yet insightful calling up tenderness as well as terror and equal parts of rapture and repulsion.

Kroll’s work tirelessly seeks out the honey of wisdom through the masterful arrangement of images from old encyclopedias, medical texts, children’s books, popular science, technical manuals, paper dolls and antique photographs. Her use of a 3-D technique gives her paper constructions a surprising presence. A fusion of poetic Surrealism and scientific paraphernalia , many of Kroll’s miniature works have intricately cut out illustrations all the way down to the individual hairs and blood vessels. The shear amount of time and attention Kroll spends in her elaborate cuttings and assemblings is worthy of attention in and of itself. She could well be called a paper surgeon; a title Kroll would no doubt embrace considering her obvious love for medical apparatuses and scientific illustrations. Kroll’s use of original antique materials lends a palpable richness and feeling of historical continuity to her work that suggests an exploration of the collective unconscious of humanity as found in the depths of her own being. As Kroll states: “Each piece becomes its own frozen drama or illustration for a story meant to reflect a visual manifestation of psychological, emotional or spiritual states.”

One of the great charms of Kroll’s work is her uninhibited embrace of the childhood feelings and memories that shaped her artistic life. Her extreme attention to detail recalls Marcel Proust’s À LA RECHERCHE DU TEMPS PERDU (Remembrance of Things Past) only instead of weaving delicate, complex sentences Kroll achieves a similar Proustian effect with her minute and intricate cuttings that are all the more elaborate by constructing the images so that they float in space and cast shadows. Her sensibility also reflects a romantic sense of nostalgia typified by the constructed box assemblages of Joseph Cornell.

Kroll’s collages at once serve a complex web of purposes that gives her work a satisfying depth and openness.

As a visual diary the collages appear to call up or commemorate personal experiences and record insights. Kroll’s method is revelatory rather than expository in nature. The purpose of her unbound diary would seem to be an attempt to reveal what is hidden rather than to explain what is obvious. For this reason the process of creating collages is designed to be a theatrical surrogate of the world that is ambiguous and open to the viewer’s own interpretations. These multiple interpretations that can be inferred in any of the works affords Kroll the opportunity to hide her own personally meaningful messages in plain view. This allows the works to be shared publicly while remaining enshrouded in a multiplicity of potential meanings in much the same way that a dozen witnesses can experience the same event and each sees something unique to himself and his point of view.

As cultural commentary Kroll’s careful juxtapositions explore the poetic content of popular culture including cartoon characters (Goofy in Nirvana), odd ball medical inventions that were the technological cutting edge of their day and the ever shifting demands of feminine identity often set against a primordial backdrop of nature or at the other end, enmeshed in gadgetry suggesting a continual preoccupation with intervention and alteration. This calls to mind the childhood rhymes;

What are little girls made of?
Sugar and spice,
And everything nice,
That's what little girls are made of.

What are little boys made of?
Snippets and snails,
And puppy dog tails,
That's what little boys are made of.

Accompanying images to these rhymes often show boys playing with bugs in the mud while the girls are clean and dainty and perhaps serving tea to their dolls. Surveying Kroll’s iconography we would have to conclude that girls are as much made of snippets and snails as sugar and spice. More poignantly, one could conclude that the seemingly innocuous lines of these rhymes have yielded a more sinister result of infecting the minds and imaginations of innocent children with social limitations and expectations that in adulthood grow unchecked into all manner emotional anxiety and the proliferation of both psychological and physical prosthetic devises in an attempt to correct perceived abnormalities or replace things that seem to be lost or missing.

As an encyclopedic exploration of visual language, one discovers a rich and subtle range of meanings in Kroll’s work. As an example, let us take the recurring images of birds. Kroll admits that the images of birds in her work represent ‘spiritual messengers’ and while this appears to be true, these beings in Kroll’s work often serve other purposes. Perhaps all bird images represent the spiritual dimension in Kroll’s work but a close reading will reveal that the birds lend a wide range of meaning to Kroll’s compositions. At times they are helpers as in the work (Feeding Elijah), at other times they are witnesses to a tragedy (Absent but Dear) , occasionally they seem to be serving a more malevolent or threatening purpose as in the works; (Scavengers) or (Infestation). In Kroll’s hands birds are creatures to be feared as much as admired and loved.

Still, the imaginal world presented by Kroll, while containing, on occasion, subjects and images that seem menacing or disturbing such as the work (Swarm) there remains an ambient feeling that the world is founded on harmony and order so long as one accepts that the world and its inhabitants are often strange, peculiar and abundant in abnormalities. Looking for evidence of the creator’s nature behind the scenes of Kroll’s world one always feels a sensitive hand, a discerning eye, a disciplined mind and an all pervading kind heartedness.

Kroll, like many collage artists in general is an avid collector who finds beauty, interest and resonance in things found or discovered. The love of found materials and their anthropologically interesting content incline collage artists to be masters of editing and arranging things. The art of the collage artist is often in composing and orchestrating collections of otherwise unrelated materials into a meaningful and cohesive composition. The best of such work has an internal integrity that gives the impression that the work fell out of the sky whole. This feeling of internal integrity seems always present in Kroll’s work.

The works by Hope Kroll in the permanent collection of the International Museum of Collage, Assemblage and Construction shall long be cherished as some of the finest examples in the genre of collage art. See her website at: http://hopekroll.com

Cecil Touchon, Director

The International Museum of Collage, Assemblage and Construction

Saturday, January 29, 2011

The New Beautiful

2011-01-29T18:15:00.000-08:00

For nearly one hundred years artists, designers, architects and engineers have been working on a huge joint project. All of this work goes on behind the scenes and now a days without even too much hoopla if mentioned at all. It is a conspiracy of epic proportion that has seeped into every facet of our everyday lives. Whether it be in the clothes that we wear, the products that we buy, the media that we watch, listen to or use, the buildings we live and work in, even the very patterns of how we structure our daily lives, and how we think, have all been conceived, designed and produced by this cabal of which I speak.

Who are these people and what do they stand for? They are cultural providers, product designers, politicians, theorists, city planners, corporate leaders, and people in thousands of other positions we have never heard of whose names and faces we shall never know. They all believe in a better world, a world well designed, where every detail has been thought out and made to work in harmony with a myriad of other items that form the fabric of modern life.

They believe in things like ‘Less is More’ and ‘Form Follows Function’, where each object is build from the ground up as a total object, whole and integral in its purpose. Clean, elegant, sleek.

When we think of Totalitarianism we usually think of Nazi Germany’s Hitler or Russia’s Stalin. However, Totalitarianism from a design point of view is what has been encouraged for decades. This has to do with setting national and international standards for everything from book design to highway systems and automobiles and their parts, to construction materials for buildings. This is to aide in creating a seamless world where costs of manufacture are kept relatively affordable for all and the designer has predictable systems of manufacture to design with. Previously, say 100 years ago, everything was hand made and custom built. There were no two things the same. Totalitarian design has changed how we do everything.

The business end of this same group of people however, invented things like planned obsolescence and the forever new and improved version of almost everything. This is good in that it creates constant demand and allows for change. The down side is change merely for the sake of change and the intentionally designed-in self destruction of products leads to huge profits and unbelievable waste.

However, for the consumer with the money to spend, there seems to be no complaint about the rather short expiration date on the objects we buy. Many are happy to move on to a new style every 6 months. I would suggest however that our insistence on newness, while certainly accepted and embraced by the world of fashion, is not appropriate for the world of fine art. The fine arts as I see them deal with the larger and longer cycles of culture where decades and centuries are the proper increments to measure by rather than the changing of seasons. Attempting to constantly strive after making something continuously new represents more of a social dysfunction that has been creeping into the American dream for quite a long time now like a mouth full of cavities after years of constantly eating refined sugar.

Never the less, the point I wish to focus on is the idea that aesthetics have change so significantly over the last 75 years that we can now say, what was modern and once strange and radical and painfully isolated in a world built over previous centuries, has now become the New Beautiful and this new beautiful is a world where abstract painting, minimalist furnishings and never before seen colors integrate with science and technology to create an environment that wider and wider circles of people can appreciate and enjoy.

I do not mean to say that the urban world will become an empty, sterile environment where only a machine could feel at home. There is no doubt that humanity is sentimental and has a love of history and it artifacts. We love to surround ourselves with things of every period and collect artifacts from cultures all over the world. But still, there is an ever growing sensibility that prefers what is fresh, forward looking and cleanly organized.

It is in the context of this modern world that my work fits and it is this New Beautiful that my work is intended to be a part of. There are a lot of things on the contemporary scene masquerading as art but are more properly expressions of politics, sociology, psychology, sexual identity and the exploration of ethnicity. Perhaps they are areas of human interest belonging to a theatrical venue, the halls of congress or a psychologist’s chaise lounge, but are not necessarily suited to a visual art gallery setting.

Art galleries by and large are for the exhibition of works of visual art. Visual art is art that is made for the eye, for being looked at, studied, examined and enjoyed with the eye. A visual work of art has only its sensuality to speak for it because a truly visual work of art has no other subject that it is about. It is about seeing and what can be grasped by observation.

If one is to remove and strip away everything that prevents seeing a painting as anything other than itself then we are left with a non-objective or abstract painting. This is a wholly modern invention. Such paintings depend completely on the elements of composition, color, shape, process and surface to provide interest and as such are a kind of visual music that is gradually taken in by the constantly moving focal point of the viewer. How and what the viewer assimilates or acquires of the image through thousands of movements of the focal point is the work of the painter who is not unlike a composer of music. The enjoyment of such visual art is very much in the same category as the enjoyment of a symphony or chamber music.

As a visual object, a work of art by its very nature has something to do with aesthetics which are matters of artistic beauty and artistic sensibility. That sensibility, like all things modern needs to reflect the ideals of this total world that is being jointly created by those previously mentioned conspirators. Painters have had, from the beginning, an honored position in proposing the New Beautiful as it was painters who first proposed the designs of this new world we now live in. Imagine the excitement and anxiety of those early pioneers of visual design and how difficult the process of understanding must have been for them!

In the process however, the idea of Newness came into vogue. “Out with the old, in with the new!” became a major battle cry of the avant garde. Now, many years later, perhaps the idea of continual newness and the urgency and anxiety and perplexity associated with it is no longer that important. Perhaps, now that the whole world is new we can relax a bit and go back and look over the path of newness and see if there are not some things that need to be rethought, redesigned, or remodeled. Maybe New today should be more about Renew and about reinvigorating the best of what has thus far happened. Perhaps some editing is in order. Perhaps we need to reexamine how we have gotten here and where it is we are headed to besides the next new thing.

Many have given up or forgotten or even have never known the ideas and ideals that have gotten us to where we are today. I propose that there is a New Beautiful and it is all around us and that we need to take a fresh look at where our forefathers have taken us and decide for ourselves to join in the conversation and to articulate our ideals and take up our part to reshape the future into a place we all want and are able to live in.

What are these ideals? They have to do with harmony and the nurturing of human dignity and the protection of human rights. They have to do with an embrace of diversity as well as a quest for unity, a respect for nature and the natural. And there is the need for style and beauty. We should not be embarrassed to use the word beautiful as many artists today seem to be. The New Beautiful is strong and light and free. It is experimental and tentative yet elegant, simple and idealistic. What was at first naïve, in time and with practice, culminates not in pessimism but in wisdom.

Stamping Fluxus Posters for Fluxfest Texas (Keith Buchholz and Cecil Touchon)

2011-01-07T05:29:00.001-08:00

Keith Buchholz flew in for Fluxfest Texas yesterday. We spent some time having Kieth's poster printed and then back to my studio to stamp the posters. Stamps included Keith's Fluxus Saint Louis stamp, Tested by Fluxus Laboratories, Approved by the International Post Dogmatist Group and a lovely Fluxus 'Chop' custome made in China by my daughter Brittany Touchon when she was in China a few months ago.

Photos by Noor-un-nisa Touchon

Futurist Paintings in Motion 2

2011-01-07T05:07:00.001-08:00

Photographs taken at the MOMA in NYC of Futurist paintings while moving the camera.

Futurist Paintings in Motion

2011-01-06T21:18:00.001-08:00

Fluxmass Carol No.1 - Thy -Thou -Thee -Thine

2010-12-26T13:28:00.000-08:00

Fluxmass Carol No.1 - Thy -Thou -Thee -Thine
Cecil Touchon, 2010

TROYART International Exhibition at MuBE

2010-12-24T16:24:00.000-08:00

Relief Assemblage by Cecil Touchon using the materials for this show:
This is a nonprofit and collaborative project. After the works are exhibited, the individual works will become part of the permanent collection of Museu Brasileiro da Escultura in São Paulo, Brazil.

ARTISTS
* Adri Volpi * Adriana Conceição * Adriano Silva Castañeda
* Adriano Silva Pantoja * Aine Scannell * Alejandra Velázquez
* Alejandro Quijano * Alessandra Cavalcanti
* Alexandre Gomes Vilas Boas * Alexandre Paiva
* Alexandre Soma * Alexandre Valdivia
* Alfredo Hisa * Ali Rubin * Allan Revich * Allen Bukoff
* Ana Carolina Meszaros - Tikka
* Ana Helena Grimaldi * Ana Niski Zveibil
* Anarkia * Andre Assis * Andres Zarza
* André Oide * Angela Ferrara * Angèle Lux
* Anna Anjos * Anne Lildholdt Jensen
* Arluce Gurjao * Aurora Del Rosal * Babette Angell
* Barbara Bonfilio * Bel Miller * Bernard Dumaine
* Beth Schneider * Bettina Vaz Guimaraes
* Betty Esperanza * Bibiana Padilla Maltos
* Bill Thomson * Bina Capadia * Blair Dobbins
* Branka Djordjevic * Caio Caruso
* Caio Fernandes * Cako Martin * Camila Mizutani
* Camilla Marangão * Carlos Cesar Jansell
* Carlos Luis DeMedeiros * Carmela Corsitto
* Carol Scarabucci * Carolyn McKay
* Cassia Aresta * Catarina Gushiken
* Cathy Nolan Vincevic * Cecil Touchon
* Cecília Centurion * Charles Mintz
* Charles Printz Kopelson * Cheryl Traub Adler
* Chris Mazzotta * Chris Mudhead Reynolds
* Chris Terrell * Christophe Massé
* Cikcuk * Cildo Oliveira * Clarissa Errico
* Claudio Grandinetti * Clauke * Clelia Rios
* Cláudio Cruz * Consuelo Debiagi
* Cris Campana * Cris Mason * Cristina Gushiken
* Cristina Rios Leme * Céline Kalifa
* César Augusto * D'Ospina Pompilio
* Dale Copeland * Dale Roberts * Daniel Fontoura
* Danilo Vallejo Garcia * David Symons * Davis Lisboa
* Debora Novak * Dedé Kanashiro * Desirée Veiga
* Dewi Johan * Diana Marshall
* Diego Garcia Vallejo * Dilar Pereira
* Dina Eugenia Gomez * Diogo Nogueira * Dominik Stahlberg
* Don Boyd * Dori Schechtel Zanger
* Dorthe Grum-Schwensen * Eddie Lara
* Eduardo Moura * Eliza Fatobene Ando * Emily Fan
* Eni Ilis Rivelino * Erica Mizutani * Estefania Gavina
* Eva Brunner * Evandro Dourado
* Evandro Prado * Ezequiel Taveras * Fabio Py
* Federico Klarich * Felipe Luiz Fatarelli
* Felipe Niski Zveibil * Fernanda Abdalla
* Fernanda Paula Silva * Fernando Maziviero
* Flavia Maluf * Florencia Maria Pinon
* Francesco Mestria * Francisco Ribeiro Stelzer
* Fátima Lourenço * Félix Morillo
* Gabriela Sodi Miranda * Gabriele Longobardi
* Gam Hoyo * Gareth Morgan * Giana Lorenzini
* Giane Pereira Soares * Gicelle Archanjo
* Ginny Lloyd * Giovanni Strada
* Glauco Diogenes * Guadalupe Urrutia
* Gwyneth Leech * Hanna Clark * Heddy Dayan
* Helen Amyes * Helenita Peruzzo
* Heloísa Ruiz Pereira * Hester Jones
* Horacio Carrena
* Hubert Caño * Ignacio Pérez * Imma Sicurezza
* Ines Fernandez * Inez Olude da Silva
* Irene Gennaro * Isabel Pochini
* Isabel Simonek Linhares * Ivana Rezek
* J. Tomas Lopez * James Ellis Coleman
* Jane Hsiaoching Wang * Janet Lee
* Javier Bassi * Jean Kusina
* Jean Pierre Machain * Jean-Maree Pool
* Jennifer Kosharek * Jenny E. Balisle
* JF Chapelle * Joan Harrison * Joao Bosco de Oliveira
* Johannes Gérard * Jonathan Johnson * Jonathan Stangroom
* João di Souza * Juan Arata * Julieta Daprá
* Just Fly * Juviano Pimenta * Karel Steiner
* Kathleen McHugh * Keith A. Buchholz
* Kleber Moraes * Kurt Stadler * Kyle Herrera
* Lamberto Caravita * Larissa Verticchio
* Laura Castanedo * Lawrence Charles Miller
* Leora Lutz * Lina Bandiera * Lina Wurzmann
* Linda Lee Nicholas * Linda Litteral
* Lis Gundlach-Sell * Lisa Iversen * Lisa Miller
* Litsa Spathi * Lon Hunt * Lone Rasmussen
* Lorraine Kwan * Louise Weinberg
* LuAnn Palazzo * Luciana Futuro * Luciana Sion
* Luis Ratto * Lunar Suede * Lúcia Py
* Maite Kragl * Mamabaer-Kommissar Hjuler
* Manhin Tam * Mara Thompson * Marcella Scarpitti
* Marcelo Xue * Marcelo Zamulko
* Marcia Cooper * Marcos Caruso
* Maria Luiza Ramirez Soares * Maria Rita Silva Biagi
* Marie Kazalia * Marina Salmaso * Mark Bloch
* Marrali Calogero * Marta Junqueira da Silva
* Martin L. Jensen * Mary Bogdan
* Mary Campbell * Mary Cartledgehayes * Mary Nash
* Marysia Raposo * Massimo Medola
* Matthew Rose * Mauro Cesari * Mayra Villas Boas
* Michael Chan * Michael Harford
* Michael Pratt * Michel Della Vedova * Michiko Yao
* Milanka Bunard * Milene Nelson
* Mimi Shapiro * Mira Reiss * Mirian Los Angeles Alfonso
* Miro Dantas * Miyö VanStenis
* Monica Romo * Myriam Zini Alterwain * Márcio Gotsfridt
* Nadina Tandy * Nancy Szaz * Natale Cuciniello
* Nathalie Valantin * Nem * Nenia Sol
* Nicole Mouracade * Nicolás R Christiansen
* Noah Van Dongen * Norma Vieira * Nádia Poltosi
* Olivia Niemeyer * Orlando Guerreiro
* Osmar Beneson * Pamela Lee Brenner * Pansy Tang
* Paola Lopes * Patrizia Monzani * Patrizia Tictac
* Paul Amyes * Paula Salusse
* Paulo Mendes Faria * Paulo Oliveira
* Paulo R. C. Barros * Peppe Esposito * Pio Breddo
* Quim Alcantara * Rachel Freeman
* Raphael Giannini * Ray Cathode * Regina de Barros
* Regina Sarreta * Reid Wood * Renata Py
* Renato Fancellu * Renato Hoffer * Ria Vanden Eynde
* Ricci Rossella * Rob Fabra * Rob White
* Roberto Scala * Roberto Stelzer
* Roger Marcel Soler * Rosa Galindo
* Rosa Grizzo * Rosilene Fontes * Ruud Janssen
* Sandra Martinelli * Sandra Valdujo
* Sandré Sarreta * Sarah Hauser * Sarah-Jayne Truby
* Saramello * Sergio Barros * Shizu Homma
* Silvano Pertone * Sinval Garcia * Sol Lang
* Sonja Benskin Mesher * St. St.
* Stephan Halter * Stephanie Gerner * Steve Dalachinsky
* stuart shearer * Suana Verelst
* Sueli Suemi Hirata * Susan Field * Susan Shulman
* Synnöve Dahlström Hilkner
* Sílvia Matos * Tales Sabará * Tam Harrington
* Tatiane Luiz Borges da Silva
* Tiziana Baracchi * Toyist Amukek * Toyist Dejo
* Toyist Fihi * Toyist Roq * Toyist Srylyn
* Toyist Vixyv * Trina Batchelor * Tulio Restrepo
* Val MacEwan * Valerie Arntzen * Vane Barini
* Vera Ferro * Vera Orsini * Vera Pamplona
* Vera pimenta * Veroicono * Victor Britto
* Virginia Milici * Walter Festuccia
* William Evertson * Yanelit Castro * Yara Dewachter
* Yara Mayumi * Yi Yin * Yolanda Quijano
* Yvette Cohen * Zuleika Bisacchi