Happy Independence Day from Charting Transcendence
Josh Kline, Reality Televison 18 (2023), nylon flags, polyurethane, epoxy, microfiber, and mounting hardware, shown by 47 Canal at Art Basel Miami Beach 2023
Recent Activities and Strategic Growth
View from the sidewalk of West 26th Street, Chelsea, home to several galleries included in a late June art tour organized by Charting Transcendence.
Charting Transcendence is a unique, authentic, intuitive and heart-forward art advisory firm whose goal is to connect art lovers with meaningful facets of human creation, leading them deeper into conscious exploration of themselves, their lives, and the wider world.
This more-than-one-year-old company now turns towards its next phase of activity and growth. Changes have been made to the website (in particular, all past newsletters are now available to browse in blog format), and the company’s marketing awaits a refresh before the contemporary art world’s “season” kicks off again in the fall.
It deserves underscoring that art is the world’s largest unregulated market of any kind, made up of heterogenous products of human passion and ingenuity.
I believe that those who would spend significant time and money surrounding themselves with art for more than half an afternoon deserve the assistance of a professional guide who can skillfully navigate the world in which it is ensconced.
Photograph recently spotted in a Chelsea gallery of legendary sculptor Richard Serra (1938-2024), showing off one of his titanic-sized rolled Cor-ten steel sculptures to his friend, composer Philip Glass (b. 1937). While moonlighting as a plumber in the late 1960s (because composing couldn’t pay his bills), Glass taught Serra to work with molten lead, and the rest is history.
I am a person who can connect people with meaningful art experiences that provide lasting value and forge new avenues of creation and consciousness.
I do this in a uniquely idiosyncratic and interdisciplinary fashion in a way both pioneering and unparalleled in art advisory.
I’ve been running this business full-time for over a year now, traveling across the United States, mentally cataloguing a bank of artistic experiences, replete with colors, stories, and varying emotions, because it’s what I’ve trained myself to do my entire life.
I’ve given numerous tours of museums and galleries to friends and clients, wearing out countless pairs of shoes along the way.
I’ve delved deeply to find hidden gems and looked critically at art that some people rave about, but perhaps falls short of being truly “great.”
I’ve allowed myself the opportunity to question the art, its context, the institutions that show it, forging an internal compass that always tends to point me in the direction of what I’m looking for.
And I’ve approached it all as my authentic self along the way, applying the skills I gained in my previous training as a linguist, photographer, diplomat, business executive and salesman.
I’ve forged a career path unlike anyone else in this industry that makes for a compelling experience… should you choose to join me to simply look at art together.
Encountering a Connecticut Yankee’s Abstract Expressionist Sculpture "en plein air”
Posing with a hanging metal sculpture by David Hayes, Matthew Blong, founder of Charting Transcendence, celebrates the unique artistic legacy of one of Connecticut’s greatest modern artists.
In celebration of Independence Day, I’m proud to champion the artistic legacy of as unique an American modern artist as can be imagined.
Was it the fact that he spent the majority of his life on a colonial-era farm in Connecticut? Or the fact that he was showcased in exhibitions of cutting-edge American abstract art at the Guggenheim and MoMA before the age of 30?
Was it that he both learned to weld large metal sculptures from David Smith and maintained a relationship with Alexander Calder (titans of 20th century American sculpture)? Or that he was selected for a Fulbright fellowship in Europe in the early 1960s in part due to a U.S.-government sponsored effort to counter the cultural influence of Soviet art by showcasing the superiority of American abstract expressionism?
How about the fact that he continued working into his 80s, leaving behind a formidable legacy that includes hundreds of majestically rusting sculptures scattered across over 50 acres of bucolic rolling New England countryside?
A visit to the David Hayes Sculpture Fields is as about as raw and unrivaled an outdoor art experience for visitors to New England as any imaginable, and highly recommended in any season.
Full disclosure: I have been on the advisory board of the foundation honoring the industrious and creative sculptor David Hayes (1931-2013) since 2019, paying a repeat visit to his farm just two weekends ago (when these photos were taken).
I will be proud, over the coming year, to introduce collectors to works of his available for purchase. His work not only comprised sculpture, but a wide range of works on paper and canvas, which are currently in the process of being fully cataloged.
Hayes’ sculptures draw adults and children alike to their mix of figurative and abstract forms, often playfully morphing into creatures (like elephants) upon their viewers’ circumambulations.
Hayes first drafted shapes in pen and ink, later extrapolating onto cut sheets of recycled metal. These, somewhat reminiscent of Matisse, adorn a modest toolshed in striking fashion.
Hundreds of Hayes’ sculptures, dating from the 1970s-2010s, rust out among over 50 acres of sculpture fields. Hayes viewed sculpture both as conceptual as well as renewable - each piece to be sandblasted and painted in primary colors when destined for a collector or museum.
Hayes worked in various series of sculpture, creating totemic monuments that eye-catching, bold, and in delicate harmony with the surroundings on his farm outside of the small town of Coventry, Connecticut.
Purvis Young: Miami's Most Prolific and Celebrated Outsider Artist
Untitled artwork (paint on board with scraps of discarded carpet) from the mid-1970s by Purvis Young, depicting a baby atop a vertical triptych of landscapes with crosses. (A somewhat similar painting of his from the same era recently sold for over $400,000.)
In partnership with a dealer in West Palm Beach, Florida, Charting Transcendence is proud to offer a selection of around 40 high-quality, original paintings of various sizes by African American outsider artist Purvis Young (1943-2010).
Born in the historical African-American neighborhood of Overtown, adjacent to downtown Miami, Young began creating art after being incarcerated for burglary in his late teens, receiving a vision in a North Florida prison that he was destined to become an artist.
Although he never finished high school, he managed to absorb a rich cache of historical influences from books at the Dade County Library. With a paintbrush he projected raw talent onto discarded materials, such as sheets of plywood and boards gleaned from abandoned buildings near downtown Miami.
Observing how I-95 bisected (and devastated) his neighborhood of Overtown in the late 1960s, Young nevertheless depicted cars as symbols of progress and modern society. Note his attractive choice of yellow and lavender on this discarded two-by-four.
Young’s work depicts, in a style that straddles both figuration and abstraction, scenes of urban life, poverty, and social injustice, while capturing the struggles and triumphs of the African American community.
Decades ago, his distinctive style garnered the attention of art enthusiasts and collectors, including mega collectors Don and Mera Rubell.
In recent years, his paintings have been increasingly acknowledged for their originality, emotional depth, and unapologetic commentary on societal issues, solidifying Young’s position as a highly prized artist in Miami's vibrant contemporary art scene.
For years I have felt powerfully drawn to Young’s artwork, discerning an almost spiritual effect when encountering it, knowing how he struggled his whole life long at the edges of society.
To own a piece of art by Purvis Young is to share fellowship with one of the greatest American outsider artists of the 20th century. Please contact me if you’re interested in learning more.
Purvis Young, who spent time on a North Florida chain gang, frequently depicted prisoners as a form of art through resistance to oppression.
His depiction of prisoners and policemen on horseback refer to cycles of poverty, incarceration, and police brutality that are all intertwined within disadvantaged neighborhoods like Overtown.
Purvis Young's style consistently displays a wide range of iconography, including horses, buildings, babies, and protesters.
Young’s art materials included scraps of carpet and discarded construction materials that he found near the I-95 overpass near downtown Miami.
