surprise

I managed to get everything done today. This is a new size, an open plate, rather japanese in feel. It suits the drawing.

Weather, unduly warm. Outside, cutting back roses and butterfly bushes. To Valreas in the late afternoon, the days are feeling longer just so subtly. Exquisite landscape! If only I had my wits about me to begin working outdoors again! The hills are a magnificent violet, interlaced cool and warm, blue greys and warm yellows like in a persian rug,... Corot and Pissarro everywhere!

In the New Yorker was an article by Peter Schjeldahl concerning the retrospective at MOMA for Gabriel Orozco, of whom I knew little. He is tough on it in a delicate way. I have noticed a hardening of the Critic's arteries of late. This is a good thing as  artists have had a free pass for all too long in my opinion. Why does one often feel like the victim of a Corporate sell in so many of these shows? It reminds me of the theme of Venice Biennale few years back: 


Think with your Heart, Feel with your Mind


duh!....


It smells of Madison Avenue,,, an ad for Mercedes or Jaguar. To top it off the artistic philosophy of Gabriel Orozco seems to be summed up in the following remark:


"People forget that I want to disappoint!"


Isn't that just another post-modern slogan from Madison Avenue? 


What DOES he really mean by this ?? 
and actually, 
What happened to the notion of surprise anyway?