Sandow Birk's "American Qur'an"

Thoughts on Sandow Birk’s American Qur’an

I’ve been mulling over Sandow Birk’s epic project: a fully illustrated version of the Qur’an on display currently at the Orange County Museum of Art.  Some 300 pages are on display—somewhere between a graphic novel and an illuminated manuscript.   Graffiti and comics are a big part of the imagery.  The consistency and pure invention on this scale is mind boggling.

First off, it is amazing.  A wonder.  And what an what a way to approach such an enormous subject!  It depicts the everyday experiences of American life in the borders of the pages of this Qur’an, each verse transcribed by hand.  

I’m not sure what possessed him to take this on, and to apply the visual banality of everyday LA life to verses of the Qur’an.  If the goal was to make it more accessible, it did— but to what end?  If the goal was to shed light with some sort of correlation between the text and his images, only rarely could I make a connection.  Perhaps the goal was to present something bigger than the artist, bigger than all of us, to remind us of that sense of awe before the divine.  We can see our daily lives for the minutia that we occupy ourselves with, totally separate from the spiritual heights of godliness.  In his work there appeared no joy in this life.  Duty, yes.  Happiness, no.  I felt totally drained after the exhibit.  It was too much.

All that said, perhaps the way to appreciate American Qur'an is one page at a time, in book form.  Pick it up, read a verse, and contemplate the daily goings on of whatever is happening in the pictures.  You might take that verse with you through the day, digest it like a healthy vegetable, and enjoy the benefits.  But all at once, it was too much.  

I love Sandow’s work, and I look at this show with tremendous admiration.  I just didn’t have the ability to digest it in one go.  I look forward to having some time with work in book form.

My Taste in Art?

My taste in art.. That is the question at hand: what shaped my taste in art?  Sort of a problematic question--

I guess influences would be the most interesting way to describe this, but it is not quite complete.  I have a taste for Lalique Jewelry, but this is not really an influence.  Or I love Takashi Murakami and Robert Irwin, though I would not call them influences.  I will do my best, bear with me, here goes:

My earliest influence would be my father and his figure drawing cohorts in Palo Alto.  This was classic Bay Area Figurative, influenced by Olivera and Diebenkorn. The drawings were all over the house.  My earliest memories are of a house with those large female forms, pastel or ink, on every wall in the house.  As a young child I would go sometime to his life drawing group-- a bunch of bohemians drawing and drinking wine.  And little me.

Then came middle school and high school and drawing comics.  Frank Miller.  Mike Zeck.  Katsuhiro Otomo.

My freshmen year of high school was my first trip to Italy, and we went through the major art highpoints on the Grand Tour stops.  Somewhere between Fra Angelico's Annunciation at San Marco and walking into the Sistine Chapel I realized, deep down, I want to be part of this.

I went to the Prado for the first time when I was 16.  I've been back many times, but I think the first time leaves you struck by the total command of paint by someone like Velazquez-- who can freeze time in a painting like Las Meninas, but make the magic trick look like it was dashed off, like the painting is being created before your eyes.

I have a profound taste for this sort of painting, a work that seems to paint itself before your eyes-- Deibenkorn also has it.  And Matisse.  And Morandi.

Gustave Caillebotte, Study for Paris, Rainy Day

In college I was influenced by the draughtsman of the Italian Renaissance.  I copied many original drawings in the Gabineto of the Uffizzi-- Bernini, Bronzino, etc.  Also during college, I saw a huge Caillebotte show at the Art Institute in Chicago.  Looking back now, Paris, Rainy Day and The Floorscrapers along with all the accompanying studies in the exhibition influenced me a great deal.


When I moved to New York a couple years after college, that was when I feel my tastes expanded and my eye became more sophisticated.  It was an eclectic frenetic absorption of new art-- not just current art but also historical art that was new to me.  I saw epic shows and tiny happenings: I fell at once for Ingres and Twombly.  Jenny Saville and Tim Hawkinson.  Uta Barth, Barry McGee.  Chardin, Morandi, Yuskavage and Guston.

Philip Guston, Zone, 1953

More recently my wife, painter Judy Nimtz, has opened up my taste in 19th Century painting.  There were always painters I admired from this period like Corot, but now I find myself delighting in Albert Moore, puzzling over Leighton, and generally allowing myself to indulge in the pure pleasure of looking at this period of painting.  My desire to look at Matisse is waning, in favor of my compulsion to inspect more traditional 19th century paintings.  I feel I still have the taste for Modernist painting, but I would rather look at a Puvis or an Arnold Bocklin than a Cezanne.

So, those are some of my formative influences.  Blend 'em all together and you get this: