{"id":1765,"date":"2024-02-18T11:39:51","date_gmt":"2024-02-18T19:39:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/otherthings.com\/blog\/?p=1765"},"modified":"2024-08-12T21:59:03","modified_gmt":"2024-08-13T04:59:03","slug":"the-real-chuck-close","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/otherthings.com\/blog\/2024\/02\/the-real-chuck-close\/","title":{"rendered":"The real Chuck Close"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><a href=\"https:\/\/otherthings.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/image.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"580\" src=\"https:\/\/otherthings.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/image.png\" alt=\"A diptych by Chuck Close: two portraits of artist Fred Wilson, painted in grids of pixels using layered glazes of transparent oil paint. The effect makes the paintings look almost like watercolor.\" class=\"wp-image-1768\" srcset=\"https:\/\/otherthings.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/image.png 1024w, https:\/\/otherthings.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/image-300x170.png 300w, https:\/\/otherthings.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/image-768x435.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\"><em>Chuck Close, &#8220;Fred\/Diptych&#8221;, 2017-2018, oil on canvas, 36&#8243; x 30&#8243;.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I was stunned to see this <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/02\/12\/arts\/design\/chuck-close-pace-gallery-arne-glimcher.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">series of Chuck Close portraits<\/a> painted in an almost watercolor style.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><blockquote>\u201cThese full-color portraits and self-portraits employ a palette of only three colors: red, yellow and blue. Layering transparent glazes of paint, Close created an effect of abstract likeness entirely different from that of his previous work. The complex color relationships that unfold in these paintings are visible at the bleeding edges of each square within the grid, where the ragged ends of each individual color are visible.\u201d<\/blockquote><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><a href=\"https:\/\/otherthings.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/image-1.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"867\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/otherthings.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/image-1.png\" alt=\"A half-finished Chuck Close portrait of Michael Ovitz. A faint pencil grid on bare canvas is partly filled in with squares of transparent oil paint.  You can see from the incomplete squares that the artist started with a layer of magenta, followed by blue and yellow.\" class=\"wp-image-1770\" srcset=\"https:\/\/otherthings.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/image-1.png 867w, https:\/\/otherthings.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/image-1-254x300.png 254w, https:\/\/otherthings.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/image-1-768x907.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 867px) 100vw, 867px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\"><em>Chuck Close, \u201cMichael Ovitz (Unfinished),\u201d 2020-2021, oil on canvas, 72-1\/2\u201d \u00d7 61-1\/2\u201d \u00d7 2.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When I started working on my \u201cBig Wet Pixels\u201d homage, I had no idea that the artist himself had spent the last few years of his life painting this way. Seeing these paintings now is bittersweet. It would have been wonderful to see what he would have done next had he lived long enough. But it&#8217;s also encouraging to see how many different interpretations are possible in this space. And that makes me want to keep exploring it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The paintings will be <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pacegallery.com\/exhibitions\/chuck-close-the-last-paintings\/\">on exhibit at the Pace Gallery<\/a> in New York, from Feb 23 &#8211; Apr 13, 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Chuck Close, &#8220;Fred\/Diptych&#8221;, 2017-2018, oil on canvas, 36&#8243; x 30&#8243;. I was stunned to see this series of Chuck Close portraits painted in an almost watercolor style. \u201cThese full-color portraits and self-portraits employ a palette of only three colors: red, yellow and blue. Layering transparent glazes of paint, Close created an effect of abstract likeness &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/otherthings.com\/blog\/2024\/02\/the-real-chuck-close\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">The real Chuck Close<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[162,7,15],"tags":[242,243,245,244,117],"class_list":["post-1765","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art","category-events","category-npar","tag-bigwetpixels","tag-chuck-close","tag-oil","tag-painting","tag-watercolor"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/otherthings.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1765","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/otherthings.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/otherthings.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/otherthings.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/otherthings.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1765"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/otherthings.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1765\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1773,"href":"https:\/\/otherthings.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1765\/revisions\/1773"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/otherthings.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/otherthings.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/otherthings.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}