ArtSmartTalk

Drawing Life

2012-01-27T15:07:00.000-05:00

I've been working with my sketchbooks lately, creating hand-colored prints and hand-made books out of hand-drawn memories that span many years. My sketchbooks make a huge, ragged pile of all shapes and sizes: large journals, ring bound notebooks, small moleskins, hard bound, soft covers, etc. The drawings are done with fine ink pen, pencil, watercolor, ball point, colored pencil, and anything else that seemed a good idea at the time. I have a selection of the hand-colored prints up at Fine Art America - they're fun to do and make nice gifts so please take a look. http://fineartamerica.com/profiles/marilyn-macgregor.html My artist book using a few of my sketches is in the exhibit 'The Decorated Book' at the Athenaeum in Philadelphia. The title of the book is 'Summer Travels - rightly so, though some of the drawings were part of other seasons spent living in England and France - there is a kind of 'summer' mentality to travel that pays no attention to the calendar. As a sketchbook artist, I am in good company, both historic and contemporary. 'Keeping a Sketchbook' (or a journal) has a kind of Victorian ring to it - it may be partly because bound sketchbooks didn't really exist much before that. When Rembrandt, the great master of loose spontaneous drawing, made sketches they were just that - loose (both senses of the word) sketches - rather than a bound collection. Like any artist who prizes the collaboration of mind and hand, he used his sketches to learn and explore, sometimes in the interest of a planned work, but surely often for his own enrichment. By contrast, when Joseph Mallord William Turner set out on his extensive travels, his baggage must always have been stuffed with a selection of sturdy books, most if not all of which can now be viewed, cover to cover, page by page, via the website of the Tate Collection in London. A trip through any one of his sketchbooks is a journey through the art of drawing, the ever-curious mind of an artist, the ever-observant eyes of an artist, the daily cares of a 19th century traveler, and the unfolding possibilities of a newly met destination. Look to his earlier books for tighter, more academic drawing, watch him loosen and become confident with any visual challenge, and have the delight of seeing him toss off late sketches with an unconscious grace. The last sketches are almost conceptual art - more suggestion than closely written description. Another of the great 'sketchers' is Hokusai, the exuberant Ukiyo-e master of 19th century Japan. A famous published edition of his 'sketches' (the word in Japanese translates as 'Manga',) edited by James Michener, the author, is a most delightful panorama of Japanese life in all its small interesting detail. Unlike Turner, however, Hokusai's 'manga' are not immediate drawings - instead his sketches were first turned into woodblock prints and arranged on the page (some say by Hokusai himself, some by the printers.) Another of my favorite 'Sketchers' is John Constable, the celebrated artist of English Romanticism - I once saw an exhibit focused on his sketchbooks in which it was noted that many had been picked up for nothing at London Flea Markets. Artists were along on many famous explorations, including Napoleon's expedition to Egypt, Darwin's epic journey of discovery, and the Lewis and Clark trek through the Louisiana Purchase in 1805. In a number of these cases the artist was also the scientist - this sketch page of a Salmon is by Meriwether Lewis. The art of sketching is alive and well, in case you're wondering. I belong to a group called Urban Sketchers - they started as a blog and now have a world-wide presence with contributors from all over the world. The range of styles and perspectives is breathtaking - I'm always torn between admiration and jealousy! The beautiful watercolor here is by Isabel Fiadeiro of Mauritania. I think I'm the only member from Philadelphia - if anyone else is out there, let me know and we can start our own chapter!

Browse the Tate Collection of Turner's Sketchbooks

http://www.tate.org.uk/servlet/BrowseGroup?cgroupid=999999995

Get to know Urban Sketchers

http://www.urbansketchers.org/

America the Beautiful on Display

2012-01-19T17:41:00.006-05:00

American Art is in the news right now. The Metropolitan Museum in New York has just completed a complete overhaul of the American Wing, one of the brightest jewels in the Museum's ever-fascinating profusion of courts, corners, and dedicated spaces. The official announcement describes 'expanded, reconceived, and dramatic new galleries' - I can't wait to see it and promise a full report when I do. In the meantime, American Art is also on display in Paris at the Louvre, with the exhibit 'New Frontier: l'art americain entre au Louvre' (American Art Enters the Louvre.) As you can tell by the title, there is nothing reconceived here; this is the first time American Art has ever been shown in the Louvre. The show is a collaboration with three American Museums, and the focus is on the art of the 19th century, particularly that of Thomas Cole. Thus the apt title 'New Frontier'; Thomas Cole is considered the founder of the Hudson River School, the group of landscape painters including Frederic Church and Asher Durand, who painted the expansive (and fast disappearing) wide open 'new' world of the Americas. Phenomenal artists with a jaw-dropping legacy of enormous, magnificent canvases, their brushes often seem to have been dipped as much in Romantic longing as in paint - luminescent lighting effects in many of the works evoke an intentionally moral and spiritual aura. The Met owns several prime examples of the Hudson River School, including Cole's The Oxbow: View from Mt. Holyoke, Massachusetts after a Thunderstorm (1836) and Heart of the Andes by Church. (Parisians will have to travel to New York to see those 19th c. American icons.) The Met is not limited like the Louvre, which allows no art in the collection more recent than the 19th century, but most of what you'll see in the American Wing is of the Colonial period to the end of the 1800's, including decorative arts as well as painting and sculpture. Among the prize works are favorite portraits by homegrown artists, most of whom made their names by starting with study in Europe - Benjamin West (born in Pennsylvania, who stayed on in London to become Painter to King George III and to train other American artists), John Singleton Copley, Thomas Sully, Charles Wilson Peale, and others. We owe many of our ideas of our Founding Fathers and the beginnings of this country to the portraits by these painters. One of the most interesting discoveries in the Met's on-line American Collection was portraits by men who we know much better as scientists and inventors. Robert Fulton, before he gave himself over to the subject of steam power, was known for his delicate miniatures of fashionable ladies (as in this watercolor and ivory portrait of Susan Hayne Simmons) and especially for his fine attention to hair and jewelry. Samuel F. B. Morse, who like Fulton trained in Europe, tried his best to make it as an artist, but finally gave it up - and invented the telegraph! This beautiful painting from 1836-37 is an allegorical portrait of his eldest daughter, Susan, as a muse of drawing. Charles Wilson Peale, another of America's pioneering artists, was as well known in his time for his museum of natural history, which included a mastodon skeleton that he 'obtained' in 1801. His 'cabinet of curiosities' occupied the second floor of the State House (now Independence Hall) in Philadelphia. There is something very right about this championing of both arts and science in one individual that fits the American creation story of idealists with big ideas but with their feet on the ground, ready to roll up their sleeves and do what had to be done. American art in both New York and Paris attests in many ways to the beauty and magnitude of that founding philosophy.

Take a tour of the new Met Galleries

http://www.metmuseum.org/Collections/search-the-collections/20012492?vid=f43563f3-25d4-4793-b356-37656fa87504

Words and Art, Art and Words - Now, Then and Always

2012-01-12T14:58:00.000-05:00

Words and visual art. The combination is an old and fruitful one, not just something invented by grafitti artists. I find a lot of it in contemporary art, so here's a look back at the tradition. Posters, of course, have a starring role. The inventive compositions of Toulouse Lautrec, among the best of all poster designs, went hand in with the development of color lithography at the end of the 18th century. If you've ever pined to be part of the nightlife of turn-of-the-century Paris, like Marion Cotillard in 'Midnight in Paris', you can blame it on those lively Lautrec posters! (see more about poster history with the weblink below) Further back, you can find the Greeks including lettering on their ceramic vessels, prompting understanding of complex stories of gods, heroes, and mythic events with what are essentially the credits. This example is a bit gory, but at least you know who's doing what. Beautiful examples of words and art abound in Western Art. The magnificent Book of Kells, from the 9th century, is more art in words than words with art. Each vellum page, decorated heavily with color and twisting puzzles of design and Christian meaning, is a tribute to artistic imagination and invention - and courage. The Book of Kells was created during the so-called 'Dark Ages,' when European civilization was at daily deadly risk from marauders - it is thought to have been created in the Abbey of Kells, north of Dublin (where it now resides in Trinity College) though may have been created elsewhere and brought along with monks fleeing the Vikings. A bit later, in more peaceful times, words and images come together in ways that reflect increasingly worldly concerns. Bestiaries, which had a fruitful period of popularity during the Middle Ages, began as reflections of a Divine Natural World, but evolved into explorations of early science. Illustrations and descriptions may border on - or be - fantasy, but they attest to a growing human hunger for knowledge about the real world. Speaking of fantasy, William Blake lived in a world that wasn't quite of this earth at times and he documented his visions carefully in words and images. His beautiful poem, Tyger, is here illustrated in his unmistakeable style. It's impossible to consider words and art without including the masterful Arabic tradition, in which there is virtually no division between art and calligraphy. Non-Arabic readers don't need to struggle with the question of what is being said (often references to Allah and the Koran) to marvel at the compositions of gorgeous forms and twining shapes. This exquisite example is by a living calligrapher named Ozcay (see more of his impressive work with the weblink below.) Modern American artists working with imagery and words include Cy Twombly and Andy Warhol, for very different purposes. Twombly, in his wonderful series "Fifty Days at Illium" at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, connects back to those Greek ceramic artists, using words and names to help tell his personal story of attachment to the Greek myths and European art, while Warhol makes typically wry comments on consumerism and the place of commodities in American life. And of course, there's grafitti - it won't go away, it's been around as long as there have been walls to write it on. The current moment of grafitti is an exceptionally creative one - you may not agree with the principle of grafitti but there's some beautiful work out there helping carrying on a long tradition of words and art.

http://www.designhistory.org/posters.html

http://www.ozcay.com/galeri/mehmed

What is your favorite work of Art and Words? Leave a comment and tell me about it!

High Branches - The Center For Art in Wood

2012-01-05T15:32:00.000-05:00

Of Chinese astrology's five elements, wood is associated with harmony and cooperation. Wood is also the heart and soul of the newly reinstalled Center for Art in Wood in Old City, Philadelphia, and harmony and cooperation are on full display. The Center for Art in Wood, which began in 1986 in response to a series of exhibitions and symposia, is recognized as 'one of the most valuable resources for the education, preservation and promotion of the field of art made from wood.' Residencies and outreach programs, an extensive permanent collection, exhibitions, and a research library mark it as the heart of an intriguing traditional and contemporary world. This is not a jolly uncle's good-natured whittling; the woodworking here is the absolute pinnacle of art, form, imagination, and craftsmanship. "Turning to Art in Wood: A Creative Journey," the 25th Anniversary exhibition of the permanent collection (on display until April 21, 2012) is a stunning experience, organized to invite the viewer on a meandering path from one breathtaking piece to the next. Make your way through the beautiful airy space, noting how groups of objects focus on a technique, a type of wood, another marvelous idea of how to coax the amazing material of wood into yet another fantastic form and finish. Whatever you think you know about woodworking, you're going to be surprised by how much more there is to be imagined, built, turned, polished, created. Wood in all forms sits on the floor, stands on pedestals and platform, hangs on the walls; one engaging work, a pile of rough, unfinished turned forms clusters against one inner wall under a video showing the artist, Robin Wood, at work. Silent but dynamic, Mr. Wood's presence in the gallery is a quietly compelling reminder of the labor that went into each of these objects, no matter how perfectly pristine the finished result.

Pristine is certainly the word for Galen Carpenter's exquisite inlaid vessel made of common chipboard inlaid with exotic rosewood and zircote, a combination that is as successful as unlikely. Color makes a good pairing of Hap Sakwa's highly polished Torus bowl of laquered poplar and maple and Robert F. Lyon's The Turner's Palett #2, a simple form delightful in its construction of basswood and colored pencils. Some pieces take a whimsical tack, like Jack Larimore's hefty chairs, titled Natural Desire, which spoof the idea of function into rich substantial sculptures, and Joanne Shima's Child's Chair, reminiscent of Gerrit Reitveld's painted icon and seemingly built of nostalgic TinkerToys. Gianfranco Angelini's elegant curved plate is one of many examples of unusual woods used for fine woodworking; his is a combination of common maple with Peruvian Palo Santo, a wood that is said to have been used by the Incas for spiritual cleansing. If I had to pick a favorite it would be very difficult but I might opt for Dale Nish's Nagare Vessel. The wood, wormy ash, lends natural holes and trails to a topography that is a beautifully conceived and finished conversation between artist, material, and nature itself. The result is a perfect reminder of the spirit of harmony and cooperation represented by the woodworker's art.

The Center for Art in Wood is at 141 N 3rd Street Philadelphia 19106

Turning to Art in Wood: A Creative Journey is on display through April 21, 2012

http://www.centerforartinwood.org/

Art Connects Us - Postcard Art History

2011-12-30T18:53:00.004-05:00

My motto in teaching and writing about art, including this blog, is 'Art Connects Us.' Art History is a wonderful way to feel the lively embrace of the universal human experience, but if you've ever taken an art history class you probably know that the subject is not ordinarily presented as inclusive. I taught the basic Art History survey course for years so I know well the curriculum of "See what the Greeks did, thought, made - theirs was a distinct culture completely alien to that of 5th c India, 9th c Americas, 16th c Africa, etc., etc., etc." But there is so much art, so many fascinating cultures, time periods, peoples, artists - and it's all part of the human story.

For me the best approach to art history is to find a common ground in a human idea or concern and then have the fun of exploring the endlessly interesting ways in which culture, climate, geography, available materials, beliefs, and individual imaginations conspire to create distinctive expressions of those basic human ideas and values.

I teach a university class with this approach - it's a rich experience for my students of widely diverse backgrounds and stimulating for me as the teacher. The broad themes sweep everyone into the discussion so no one has reason to feel excluded or sidelined - we're all part of a continuing tradition of art and human expression. Human figures, animals, beliefs, power, wealth, landscapes, family portraits: the list of possibilities never ends. The human face, for example, holds a place of importance in nearly every culture and time and gives clues to deeply held ideas and values - but hold onto your seats because the differences in expression are astonishing. Every culture and time period chimes in with intriguing forms and layers of meaning.
The goddess Athena's beautiful stone face is a perfect representation of the serene, logical Classical Greeks, but just as representative of its culture is this lovely Gabon Mask, in which geometry forms a vital part of the design, and the chalkiness of the face indicates a spiritual connection. Picasso's wild 'Man in a Hat' would seem madness to the Greeks, as well as to Hans Holbein and the court of Henry VIII, to which this pencil drawing of poet Thomas Wyatt gives us insight, but Modern Art finds in it a fresh creative approach to an old subject. Cindy Sherman's use of her own face as a canvas speaks perhaps all too clearly of a contemporary familiarity with complex ideas of questioning identity. Above all, seated around the table of humanity, the commonality of 'Face,' as in these examples, provides a place to begin a powerful conversation about the meaning of being human.
To expand this work and these ideas I'm offering a series of online Art History 'classes' in the form of postcards - Postcard Art History. Each of the series follows a theme in in 10 week subscriptions, with art ranging broadly across cultures, styles, time periods, and artists. Each week you receive a pdf postcard with an image on one side and a brief but solidly informative explanation on the other. Week by week you'll see how cultures and eras interweave and share ideas, values, beliefs. You'll discover differences in the art that work to emphasize commonalities in human experience, and you'll be excited to find new insights and discoveries about art and art history. Themes are fun and intriguing, from 'Supermodels: Glamour Girls of Art History,' 'Gods of All Shapes and Sizes.' 'Happy Families', and others - and I'll be adding new themes regularly. A Postcard Art History series makes a unique, interesting gift for family and friends, a good way to catch the interest of children, and a great treat for YOU! If you enjoy my ArtSmartTalk blog I hope you'll support Postcard Art History and recommend it to others. Find all details at www.postcardarthistory.com.

Cats, Feasts, and Chardin

2011-12-14T10:34:00.000-05:00

Cats, like children, are hard to include in serious art - too cute. For a change from the modern art of the last two posts, here's some 'serious' historical art that happens to include cats, by one of my favorites. I like cats - I have two - and I'm very fond of the artist Jean-Baptiste Simeon Chardin (shown here in a self portrait from 1775.) Born in Paris in 1699, Chardin grew up and spent his life within the city walls without much need or thought for travel beyond. Once he caught the attention of King Louis XV he was granted a studio in the Louvre and lived there until his death in 1779. (At the time the Louvre was an abandoned royal residence being used for artisan workshops and meeting places for the artistic and scientific academies founded by Louis XIV - Chardin went regularly to meetings of the arts academy after he became a member.) Chardin was a true local artist, mostly self-taught but smart and observant - and a quiet revolutionary. In contrast to the grandiose Rococo art that is the signature of the period, Chardin took his cue from the deceptively simple Dutch still life tradition. The golden age of Dutch Baroque painting was drawing to an end, but masterful examples of composition, virtuosic effects of light and texture, and the rich possibilities of a simple story told with style and close attention to detail would have been easy for Chardin to find. 'Deceptively simple' is a good phrase to keep in mind for Dutch still lifes as well as for the work of Chardin - there is far more than meets the eye. Many Dutch still lifes feature grandiose settings of lavish expensive foods and exquisite vessels of glass, silver, and brass - they do double duty in celebrating the enormous prosperity of Holland during the 17th century, while also paying homage to the simple pleasures of life, free of tyranny by church or king (many contain intricately coded messages, but that's a complicated subject for another post.) The example by Alexander Adriaenssen (at the top), who died shortly before Chardin was born, is somewhat atypical of Dutch still life, but it is a close match for Chardin. The concentration of raw foods anticipate the feast to come, inviting us behind the scenes to identify with the simpler folk who will do the work of preparation - and shoo away the cat lurking around that tempting pile of fresh fish. Chardin's revolution was this peek behind French aristocratic grandiosity, gently (and probably unconsciously - he was no outright rebel) guiding thoughts to a democratic future that would soon slap France hard across its rouged and powdered face. 'The Ray' from 1728 was one of several early paintings that gained him admission to the Academy. I've always found it to be one of his most interesting stories in paint. There are messages here of life and death, cruelty and comfort. Note the cat (really a kitten) - cute at first glance but with the demonic leer of a killer intent on prey, and in contrast the strange 'face' of the eviscerated ray that evokes a sad commedia del arte clown. The knife - an instrument of death - and the pitcher - a container for water, the stuff of life - hover just at the edge of the table, a precarious position that may be there to remind of us the precariousness of existence. 'The Silver Tureen' also by Chardin, also from 1728, also with a cat, seems a meditation on life, with the cat sitting quietly staring into the blank eyes of his fellow creatures , seeming to question the whimsy of fate. And for dog lovers, 'The Buffet.' There are messages here too, but as far as I can tell the dog is just a dog - always hungry and cheerfully optimistic about that pile of food toppling his way.

Modern ArtMan: DeKooning at MOMA

2011-12-07T19:52:00.001-05:00

He was a handsome guy, no doubt about it. Even with the 27 cents or whatever it was he had in his pocket when he arrived in New York in 1926, he was going to do something and be somebody - you can see it in the pictures. He paid the requisite art dues for about10 years, working as a sign painter and for the WPA, but by 1935 he was pretty much launched on his career. I doubt, though, if even he knew how important a career that would be. The big retrospective of his work at MOMA - astonishingly, the first major retrospective for him EVER - has been knocking everybody's socks off since it opened on September 18. I certainly concur. It's a fabulous, comprehensive, exhaustive, show, with plenty of 'I never saw that' and 'I didn't know he did that' moments. The first of these comes right at the beginning, with the uncannily accomplished still life he painted when he was a teenage apprentice in his native Rotterdam - it's a 'life's not fair' moment, in a category with the portrait Picasso did at a similar age and young Leonardo da Vinci's angel, so beautifully painted that ever after his master Verrochio (allegedly) devoted himself exclusively to sculpture. The de Kooning of the iconic Woman series is present almost immediately by the fierce sense of energy that pervades his work in all mediums, though he worked his way through several influences and experiments with style. I found the first true 'de Kooning' appearing around 1939 with 'Figure,' a small framed study that looks backward to the elegance and form of Renaissance portraits while also sounding a loud call to the colorful, fractured expression of mid-20th century America art. Arshile Gorky was clearly important for de Kooning; they were exact contemporaries and shared a studio for a while, probably finding comfort in their common status as uprooted Europeans as well as support for their brave adventures in modern art. I saw a lot of Gorky in de Kooning, even in later paintings, no doubt helped along by the recent Gorky exhibition at the Pennsylvania Museum of Art. Both of them had a way with color that was distinctive, aggressively appealing, even jarring, with a kind of exaggerated sweet palette of pinks, greens, and blues. Cezanne's mastery of color came to mind too; de Kooning had as sure a touch with his particular combinations as Cezanne had with his, though de Kooning's are atonal, minor chords compared to Cezanne's deep resonant harmonies. Having said that, I loved his black and white drawings from the 1940's where line and form, splashed and swirled with the same dashing, confident energy, took precedence over color. Gallery after gallery is full of exciting, pulsing shapes and movement; it's like he had a big stew of shapes and ideas constantly on the boil, and he kept stirring it up and pulling out new ways to use the ingredients. The bulbous, throbbing shapes of recognizable limbs and bodies morph into abstract shapes in the drawings, then into more figures, and into his iconic women with their sharp little grinning mouths. One wall is hung with 5 of the Women series, a wonderful intellectual and aesthetic gauntlet. So much has been written about these blowsy, powerful females, much of it stuck on descriptions involving 'angry' or 'frightening.' In my opinion they're rich, somewhat comical, strong, assertive, and assured - they may be aggressive, but why shouldn't they be? De Kooning was looking squarely forward by that time - it's not the old days anymore. At least that's what I like to think, despite knowing that he wasn't always so nice to his flesh and blood wife and fellow painter, Elaine de Kooning. Her portrait in the show is a counterpoint to the Women series on several levels. Calm, subdued, done with virtuoso drawing skill and carefully focused on every detail of her face, it could be an 18th century portrait by Jean-Dominique Ingres. The exhibit continues through the last phases of de Kooning's life and career, encompassing a period of pure abstraction and on, into the years when he suffered from Alzheimer's before his death in 1997. Somewhere in the 70's, although the energy and pure panache with paint and surface never flagged, as evidenced by a gallery full of bravura abstractions, the center started to disappear. In the last years it finally slipped away completely, leaving only the untethered ribbons of those sad late paintings. De Kooning is the acknowledged start to 'Abstract Expressionism,' the movement that dominated art during the middle years of the 20th century and changed everything that came after - the MOMA retrospective is the celebration of one of the greatest contributors to the story of Modern Art.
Exhibition images courtesy of www.moma.org

More about De Kooning: A Retrospective
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2011/dekooning/
http://www.npr.org/2011/12/05/143134807/at-moma-a-look-at-de-koonings-shifts-in-style

When Modern Art Came to America - Stieglitz and His Artists at the Met

2011-12-01T10:12:00.001-05:00

Is John Marin the greatest watercolor painter that nobody remembers anymore? I hadn't thought of him in a long time, but when I saw the exhibit 'Steiglitz and His Circle' at the Met recently, it was a chance to consider him again. It's a very interesting show, focused on Alfred Stieglitz's efforts and successes in bringing Modernism to America in the early 20th century. Stieglitz, best known for his own moody atmospheric photography from street scenes of bygone New York to sensual portraits of his wife Georgia O'Keefe, championed European modernists at his Gallery 291, years before America got its big jarring, choking dose of Modernism with the Armory Show in 1913. The Met sets up the chronology: first photographs, snow scenes with horse drawn carts and Edward Steichens' beautiful night scene of the Flatiron Building (1904), all recalling a mythic New York that barely resembles hipped-up, maxed-out Manhattan of today. After that (and after annoying his photographer pals for switching his mission) Stieglitz began showing European Modernists, including Matisse, Rodin, Picasso, Lautrec, Kandinsky and others. A room full of intentional shockers - crotch drawings and other 'private' pleasures - gives way to more serious aesthetic engagement with the best and most interesting work at that moment in time. Americans are soon in the mix and the balance is pretty even, in the work if not in the big European names. There was important exchange going on, though it was all one-sided then; New World progressives, including Arthur Dove, Marsden Hartley, Marin, and Diego Rivera grabbed at what the Europeans were doing and built their own brave experiments based on fracturing traditions of space, form and color. After 1913, his monopoly on Modernism broken, Stieglitz shifted almost exclusively to American artists, including Georgia O'Keefe, his newly discovered sensation about whom he supposedly said, "Finally, a woman on paper." Some thought Stieglitz had lost his nerve after 1917 when he closed Gallery 291. A Frances Picabia drawing of a bellows camera is a disguised portrait with a critical message; the bellows is detached so the camera no longer functions. Stieglitz opened The Intimate Gallery in 1925 with a close-knit group of Americans; the last group of rooms in the exhibit are the testament to their will to define and proclaim a Modern art of this soil and this place. There are O'Keefes in abundance, but it was the Marin watercolors that held my interest. He had a particular way of cracking and reassembling space with a nod to Cubism, but with a distinctly individual sense of blend and separation, as if piecing back together a jigsaw puzzle of his own devising. In the exhibit we see the arc of his work, from views of Paris (he spent six years traveling and learning in Europe) into stronger and more confident compositions of American elements - open spaces, broad seas, rocky coasts, as well as brassy New York City. His vocabulary of slashing strokes, dots and dashes, with color that moves from saturated strength to soft diffusion, gives his small-scale work a dimension that can be almost monumental. John Marin was one of Stieglitz's first artists, and their personal and professional alliance lasted 40 years; O'Keefe and Stieglitz were married at his house. There is a lot to see in New York right now. The deKooning show is a definite Do-Not-Miss - but don't miss this one either.

Stieglitz and His Artists: Matisse to O'Keeffe: Metropolitan Museum of Art through Jan 2, 2012

http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/stgl/hd_stgl.htm

Happy Thanksgiving - Pass (on) the Irony

2011-11-23T09:32:00.001-05:00

Norman Rockwell did not invent Thanksgiving. It may seem like it: if you've ever seen his iconic illustrations for the holiday, you know what Thanksgiving is supposed to be like. There they are (nobody I know but they must be out there) clean, scrubbed, and hungry, ready to dig into the enormous (authentic farm-raised) bird cooked by the loving grandmother, who brings it to the table, her (spotless) apron still in place, to place before the patriarch in his best (well-worn but neatly mended) suit so that he can offer a (modest but sincere) blessing. It's easy, in our ironic, less modest and sincere age, to poke fun at this and other of Rockwell's images, to criticize - where are the people of color?, where are the vegetarian alternatives? - but Rockwell's Thanksgiving images, like much art, must be judged in context to appreciate. It's just as easy to miss the sly bits - the guy in the right corner peeking up at the viewer, breaking the illusion to ask, 'What do you think? Do you believe this?' An illustrator would not want to paint like that now, nor would there be a client for it - but Rockwell was a master and there is much to admire. Look at the way he places arms and legs, how he uses white or negative space, the subtle play of gesture and angle. Ironically, his most famous 'Thanksgiving' image is, well, a bit ironic. It doesn't represent Thanksgiving - the title is Freedom from Want. This was the cover of the March 6, 1943 Saturday Evening Post, one of Rockwell's celebrated Four Freedom covers, created in the midst of a grueling war to remind America of it's good fortune. (The others are Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Worship, and Freedom from Fear) Some of those freedoms feel under fire these days, with the troubling news of economic and physical battering for too many Americans right now. It is a different time, and art always wears the cloak of its own time and place. Rockwell did do other actual Thanksgiving illustrations, less sober and moralistic. He was a wonderful storyteller in the wholesome American folktale sort of mode, with a rollicking sense of visual humor that matched perfectly to the unironic, self-congratulatory mid 20th century, before hippies, rebels, and civil rights protesters started peeling back the veneer to reveal so much that needed to be admitted to and addressed. Rockwell follows in the footsteps of America's greatest illustrator, N. C. Wyeth, who is best known for his powerful Treasure Island series. He also did what could be classified as Thanksgiving illustrations; in 1940 he began a series of murals about the Pilgrims for the Metropolitan Life building in New York. His take on this American tradition is colorful but somber, with careful attention to historical detail - gravitas fit to a darker time. You can find some of the Pilgrim illustrations gathered into a beautiful picture book, N. C. Wyeth's Pilgrims, by Robert San Souci, himself a prize-winning illustrator. An illustrator has to be a good storyteller - what sets both Wyeth and Rockwell at the top is their handling of story, color, form, detail - everything adding up to so much more than the whole.
Happy Thanksgiving! What does your Thanksgiving look like?

High Art from the Highlands - Scottish artists at the PMA Craft Show

2011-11-17T10:24:00.001-05:00

Scotland was in Philadelphia last weekend, in the person of 25 extraordinary artists at the Philadelphia Museum Craft Show. Each year the PMA Craft Show highlights the finest work of a particular country - this year it was Scotland, and what a rich showing these northern folk put on. I didn't get to talk to all of them, unfortunately, but I'll point out a few that stopped me in my tracks. I'm always on the lookout for drawing, even if I'm not aware of it, so Claire Heminsley's booth drew me in like a magnet. I felt like I'd found a long-lost sister when I saw her loose line drawings and saw her tribute to her artist dad who taught her about drawing (my father did the same - we used to go out sketching together.) Much of Claire's work involves fabric - printing her drawings on practical items like aprons or tea towels, as well as on multimedia work that combines stitching, typography, printing, and found objects. Her marriage of the ordinary with the ethereal adds up to a wonderful sense of serious fun. See more at http://www.incahoots.org.uk/index.html Across the aisle, Stacey Bentley was drawing too, this time in metal jewelry. Stacey is one of those delightful, well-groomed women whose appearance belies the tough reality of the process behind their work - industrial enamels, twisted and soldered metals, multiple firings - her work has a kind of brawny industrial feel in miniature, with an effect that mixes delicacy and grit. Stacey calls it an 'urban aesthetic' and cites influence from what she observes in her travels. See more at http://www.staceybentley.com/index.html. Fabric is the medium for Jilli Blackwood. Her extravaganzas, some wearable, some decorative, shout excitement across the room, but also pull you in close to examine her marvelous, infinitely adventurous play with cloth, embroidery, stitching, color, and texture. Process and imagination for Jilli, as with most of these artists, are tightly interwoven. She talks of color and hand dying as the entry point for developing her ideas and bringing in the unique personality that marks each piece. She described one piece as based on elephants she observed while creating costumes for the Commonwealth Games in India - it made sense as she pointed out sinuous lines that recall an elephant's flexible trunk and the grey green texture of cloth that stands for an elephant's tough hide - from there, in, on, and around those concrete images, she wove her magic to conjure up a whole visual narrative of association through stitch and color. See more at http://www.jilliblackwood.com/index.html Carla Edwards resin jewelry matches Jilli's work for color but is a world apart in texture. Her softly bright pendants, earrings, and brooches, inspired by natural shapes and forms, have a smooth, inviting visual and tactile feel. See more at http://www.carlaedwards.co.uk

The haunting charm of Karen Akester's small evocative figures is still vivid in my mind - her work was one of the most memorable experiences of the entire show (which, of course, also included much fabulous work by American artists - see my posts from other years about this great Crafts Show.) Karen, educated at Edinburgh's School of the Arts and working there in one of several art communities supported with private and government funds (from what I heard from these artists, the US could learn a lot from Scotland about supporting the arts) was not only delightful to talk with, but an artist whose work rises to that rare place of brilliance in conception and craftsmanship. She creates with glass and metal, sometimes together, sometimes separately, but her figures always add up to more than the sum of their parts. Using vintage photographs of schoolchildren as her starting point, she makes small standing figures, a bit woebegone and melancholy, that quietly spill out an intense sense of dark whimsical mystery. It's impossible not to want to know more - or to start telling yourself their stories, which are surely full of guilty mischief, punishments involving bed without supper - or worse. See more at http://www.karenakester.com/

These artists were all so warm, friendly, interesting and gifted. If only my MacGregor ancestors had been better behaved in the 18th century - if they hadn't been run out of the country as outlaws I might still be there working and hanging out with them.
For more information about Scotland's Craft Artists in general and these artists in particular go to http://www.craftscotland.org/about-us/our-work/PMA/

Chance Falls - Pat Steir at Locks Gallery

2011-11-11T09:40:00.001-05:00

I first became aware of Pat Steir when I assigned an Art in America article about her work to a student years ago. I can't remember what the student did with it, but Steir's graceful, mesmerizing work really stuck with me. I was happy, therefore, to find it close to home, in a fine exhibit currently at the Locks Gallery in Center City Philadelphia. The large color drenched canvases seem somehow made for this particular setting with its dark ceiling and columns; the fit of space and content has an organic, inevitable feeling that adds satisfaction to the experience of the show. Any description of Steir's painting includes the word 'waterfall' - the pictures make the description self-explanatory. She treasures the happenstance of art-making, a value she credits in part to her friendship with John Cage, who introduced her to its potential. Steir's work testifies to her chronology - her Action Painting approach connects her not only to the ideas of Cage but also to older, but not distant contemporaries Joan Mitchell and Helen Frankenthaler. Color pours down her canvases in watery, nuanced sheets of layered hue, shade, and value: the action of the making continues in the finished work. At a distance the canvases give off a rich, soothing rhythm, but up close the general blur defines into fine trails that mingle, divide, and pool together. There is also a strong link to Chinese landscape painting, mentioned in the press release for the show, manifested in a feeling of ethereal grandeur as well as the fine layering of organic strokes. Most of the works in the show are named for the pigments she used in creating them: naples yellow, paynes grey, indigo, a particular green or blue. Several include gold pigments. A good part of the pleasure of the work, for me, was inspecting the surfaces at close range, finding the happy accidents that arise from Steir's process - rivulets of gold coursing through, over, and behind sheets of white, blue, green, leaving little nuggets at a crossroad where she made a divide, a buried color suddenly peeping through to make a quietly assertive statement.
Pat Steir: Water and Sand is at the Locks Gallery through November 26.
http://www.locksgallery.com/exhibits_works.php?eid=133

Chess - A Game of History and Charm: The Lewis Chessmen

2011-11-03T12:08:00.000-04:00

My favorite little men are coming to New York - The Game of Kings: Medieval Ivory Chessmen from the Isle of Lewis opens at the Cloisters on November 15. Bug-eyed Kings dismayed at the prospect of close and bloody combat, Queens holding worried faces, Soldiers so eager to begin that they bite their shields in anticipation, Bishops gripping their croziers, Horsemen hunched and ready: these little ivory creatures give us a world that faded long ago, though their iconic battle persists and endures in the game of chess. It is a fact that these delicate but vigorously carved ivory creatures were found in 1831 on the Scottish Isle of Lewis. It's agreed that they date from around the 11th century (partly attested by the style of the Bishop's miter) but beyond that almost all is speculation. Are they Icelandic, or Norwegian, for whom were they created, by whom were they used? The pieces have so much personality; it's frustrating that they can't tell more of their story. The game of chess predates these 'men', which are likely pieces from four sets - some are now in the National Museum of Scotland and some in the British Museum (which lent theirs for the show.) Chess began sometime around 600 in northern India or Afghanistan - the vocabulary of chess and the basic forms and rules come directly from those origins. These Indian illustrations show chess games between Krishna and his consort Radha and another played outdoors by high born gentlemen. Chess became very popular in aristocratic Europe during the 11th century - the quality of the Lewis Chess Set identifies the owners, whoever they were, as being of wealthy and privileged rank. Even the backs are carved, in the intricate woven patterns consistent with the time and place. Norse mythology is written in these pieces, particularly in the 'Berserkers' those avid soldiers - Berserkers in the sagas were soldiers so frenzied by battle that they fought in a trance. The pieces are small, but larger than the ordinary chess 'men' of today's game - it is said that the board needed for a full game would have measured about 3 feet across - and that the board may have been red and white rather than black and white. Either color opposition makes symbolic sense: archetypal opposition can be seen as dark vs light, or as blood/passion red vs purity/innocence. A drafty battle tent, a lofty hall in a great stone castle, a blustery cold wind flapping and wuthering, the light from a fire flickering over battle-worn hands, faces creased as they ponder their moves and shift these woeful, charming little creatures - the Lewis Chessmen tell us silently that they were there, somewhere.
The following links give information about the exhibit and the Lewis Chessmen.

http://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2011/the-game-of-kings-medieval-ivory-chessmen-from-the-isle-of-lewis

http://www.nms.ac.uk/our_museums/national_museum/lewis_chessmen_unmasked/meet_the_chessmen.aspx

In a park in Geneva, Switzerland life-sized men are 'men' in a giant game of chess. Do you play chess? Is it just a game for you or an iconic battle of good and evil?

RED, red, and Rothko

2011-10-27T09:29:00.000-04:00

Mark Rothko, as presented in the play RED, is irascible, self-centered and selfish, in love with his own opinions, domineering .... the justification for such a personality looms over audience and players, the large RED painting meant to represent Rothko's actual work. When I saw RED (the play) recently, I found it to be meaningful but not as compelling as I had expected, partly because I thought the actor playing Rothko didn't have enough gravitas for the role. I'd like to see it again, with another actor, to see what it would be like. (the photo is from the NY production with Al Molina, which got rave reviews - not the one I saw) But that's ART, whether on the stage or on canvas. Rothko did miraculous things with the color red, but the same color is scrawled across handmade valentine cards and schmaltzy paintings of sunsets. The difference (noted in the play) is significance. One artist picks up a brush, a pencil, a piece of paper or cloth, and a few bits of color and creates an object that stirs deep in the soul and moves you to reverie or to tears; another makes a painting that goes well with the sofa. The glory and the frustration of being an artist is striving for significance and always fearing you'll just end up over the sofa. RED features a series of paintings - a 'mural' that was commissioned from Rothko by Philip Johnson, architect of the iconic Seagram's Building on Park Avenue in New York, to be placed in the high-style Four Seasons Restaurant. Rothko was paid a great deal of money and set to work, but somewhere along the line he apparently became to fear the 'sofa' problem (the play centers his doubts in a studio assistant who challenges his motives but the true reason is unknown) - he returned the money and refused the commission. The 30 paintings he did for the commission, however, remain to testify. (Some are at the Tate Modern, some in Japan and elsewhere) Rothko was known for his 'pickiness' - his insistence on proper lighting (very dim) and placement, and when 'he' explains on stage that he can't allow his work to be trivialized as a backdrop for the clank of silverware and the empty prattle of rich diners, it rings true. There is a spirituality about Rothko's work that resonates deep and long with profound significance - it's no surprise that one of the most successful installations of his work is in a specially built Chapel in Houston. Red, of course, was not his only color, but it spoke a language that he understand like few others. The great painting Red Studio by Matisse, a supreme colorist, is mentioned in the play - another iconic use of this rich complex color. There is also word play with a litany of red shades and hues that is one of the delights for any painter - "cadmium, vermillion, alizarin...." Red has a myriad of variations, some deadly in pigment form. 10 years after the play was set, in February 1970, Rothko killed himself in his studio. His life and work, and then death, were defined by color - the colorful reds gradually disappeared over that decade, replaced finally by dark, heavy blacks, mud browns, and greys.

If you're interested in color you'll like this blog, full of information about colors, pigments, history, and uses

http://artists-pigments-index.blogspot.com/

What does color mean to you? What color defines YOUR life?

iBeauty - Steve Jobs and Design

2011-10-19T17:38:00.001-04:00

I was inspired to focus this post on Design by Ross Douthat's recent NY Times essay about Steve Jobs. Douthat's tribute, among those I saw and read, was the only one to mark out Jobs for his contribution to Design - while he was, of course, also reinventing our entire lives. The article points out Job's "eye for grace and style, and his recognition of the deep connection between beauty and civilization." There it is - the crucial factor that is so easily overlooked. We live better, think better, and create more positive versions of ourselves when we recognize that beauty is essential to our lives. Jobs himself said of design, “In most people’s vocabularies, design means veneer. It’s interior decorating. It’s the fabric of the curtains of the sofa. But to me, nothing could be further from the meaning of design. Design is the fundamental soul of a human-made creation that ends up expressing itself in successive outer layers of the product or service.”
Jobs held 317 patents for Apple products. They range across categories: computers, mice, monitors, but also the staircase in Apple stores and a clasp for a pair of cords. An interactive timeline from the NYTimes gives the idea (click on the link at the end of the post) Not all are 'beautiful' but you can see how he moves over the years from the first typewriter with a tv and a box (1977) towards sleek, graceful forms that have an inevitable relation to function. They work - astonishingly so at times - and, especially from the last 10 years or so, the designs are truly beautiful. A user interacting with an iPhone is beauty in action - form and function in harmony, with an extra measure of very cool pleasure. There are some Jobs products that didn't make it but now they don't count because no one remembers them. The rule of good product design can be defined as 'looks good' 'works well' and 'sells well' - if all three aren't there, the product won't survive. The blog Architecture + Morality puts forth this tenet in a post about design: 'most people believe that good ideas should continue, while bad ones should be laid to rest. Usually the market filters out the real stinkers.."

Steve Jobs is listed as 'artist' in the database of the Museum of Modern Art: a number of his designs (some in collaboration with others) figure in the permanent collection. His true nature, as characterized in one of many tributes, was that of Leonardo da Vinci, rather than the more straightforward genius of Einstein. Like da Vinci, the metaphorical box was for other people - Jobs was always out beyond, dreaming up what was going next INTO that box with the immortal logo.

Here are a few examples of contemporary product design. What do you think - which of them will survive? (Dropp! bowl made of silicone, toilet and bidet by Laufen, Standing Kitchen tools by Head Chef)
Ross Douthat's article

10/09/opinion/sunday/douthat-up-from-ugliness.html?_r=1&ref=rossdouthat
Interactive Apple timeline

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/08/24/technology/steve-jobs-patents.html?ref=business
Blog Post Architecture + Morality

http://architectureandmorality.blogspot.com/2005/11/some-things-are-better-when-theyre.html

New Art in Old City - Snyderman-Works and Gallery Joe

2011-10-13T14:37:00.003-04:00

There's a lot of art to see in Old City Philadelphia, but currently there are two shows that stand out. In media and execution they're at opposite ends of the spectrum but if you're interested in thoughtful, careful work by sophisticated professional artists, you should see them both. Dust and Shade, Drawings by Charles Ritchie, at Gallery Joe, brings you into a quiet, small-scale world of finely observed detail. Ritchie has 4 sketchbooks in the show - see them first, and you'll understand a lot about his approach. His rich delicate watercolors and tiny spidery handwriting bring to mind 19th century Victorian sketchbooks, but when you examine the framed drawings on the wall you see that he brings the same detailed awareness of the possibilities of the ordinary to his finished work. A dark night, a suburban house under a streetlight, a scrim of bare branches - this is Ritchie's touchstone. The same quiet neighborhood (his own, in Maryland) figures in many of the works. There is a suggestion of eternal fall, but then comes a scene with snow - the white mounds feel inevitable, as if they're guarding the house through the winter. Subtle tricks with the light and shadows give a slightly surreal feeling and bring to mind Magritte's painting, Empire of Light. Interior scenes are soft, graphite stills of life interrupted for just a moment, but look closely and watch the tiny spidery handwriting emerge around the edges. You're back to Ritchie's sketchbooks and his gift for detailed observation of life as it happens.

Snyderman-Works Gallery, an extraordinary, impeccable place that has been championing fine art/craft for almost 50 years, is showing Sonya Clark's deeply intelligent mixtures of craft, art, history, and tongue-in-cheek humor. Like Ritchie, Clark has a touchstone in the ordinary, but for her it's not the romance of a familiar neighborhood, it's the edgy duality of a simple plastic comb. The stunning centerpiece of the show is a wall-hanging portrait of the African-American entrepreneur C. J. Walker, who, in the late 1900's, made a fortune with hair products, including one that helped prevent scalp disease. From a distance it appears photographic, perhaps an extreme enlargement of a daguerrotype, or even a cut paper silhouette, but in reality it is made of hundreds of the banal black plastic combs that figure in many of Clark's works. For this portrait she manipulated her medium, breaking out teeth and crisscrossing the combs to give her a surprisingly fluid vocabulary. Hair, real or imitated with yarn, is at the heart of the work on display. Some examples are blatantly humorous - Abraham Lincoln on a 5 dollar bills sports a 70's era Afro - but peel back the layers and you'll find the Emancipation Proclamation, the plight of freed African slaves newly dependent on making an elusive, money-driven living, etc - to the present day. 'Diaspora' appears fairly simple at first too - tiny white canvas squares, each with a long tail of dark braid, cluster on a wall, but watch and think and you almost see them start to move, questing for escape or betterment, and leaving trails of identity and tears. I was especially struck by 'Comb Carpet' a dark square that is, as it states, made of combs pointing their little spikes upward. It looks like black Astroturf, but as you imagine yourself settling down for a picnic or a nap, you feel the jabs and notice the ripples that disturb the surface. No easy seat this - this is history in subtle, pointed relief. Clark's work is significant - the show at Snyderman-Works is her first one-person show in Philadelphia.
Dust and Shade, Drawings by Charles Ritchie is at Gallery Joe through October 22.
Sonya Clark is at Snyderman-Works Gallery until November 19.
Note: Old City Philadelphia is gritty, lively, edgy, exuberant - a perfect place for the battery of energetic art galleries, studios, hip little shops, and brash neon bars that defines it. First Friday in Old City is, month after month, the best city art party I've ever seen. If you haven't been to it, you're invited, so go!
http://www.galleryjoe.com/exhibitions/current/2011/09/24/dust-and-shade%3A-drawings-by-charles-ritchie
http://www.snyderman-works.com/exhibitions/sonya-clark

Art/Freedom/Books/Think - for Iraq

2011-10-05T14:30:00.001-04:00

I usually write about other people's art, but this time I want to share a project I've been working on. It's a book - handmade, hand-bound, with prints of original drawings - and I'm doing it as part of a world-wide movement called the Al-Mutanabbi Street Coalition. The background: There was once a great Arabic writer named Abu at-Tayyib Ahmad ibn Huseyn. Born in the 10th century, he was the son of a water carrier, a born revolutionary, and a court poet for an Arab Prince. His nickname, Al-Mutanabbi, means 'the would-be prophet.' He was eventually killed, perhaps because, in a poem, he insulted a powerful man. For centuries the Baghdad street named after him was the center of intellectual life, with books and booksellers everywhere, and cafes buzzing with lively literate discussions. But then came March 5, 2007, and life on Al-Mutanabbi Street was blown to bits by a car bomb. More than 30 people were killed, more than 100 wounded - and the heart of literate Iraq was dealt a death blow. Or at least that was the intent. Kill ideas, kill thought, kill expression - it's a rusty old weapon in the violent arsenal of control and oppression. Al Mutanabbi Street reopened for business in 2008, but no one can think it will easily return to normal. For several years, The Al-Mutanabbi Street Coalition has been working to counter the destruction of books, ideas, intellectual pursuits, literary accomplishment, and the dignity of the Iraqi people. The organizers, Beau Beausoleil and Sarah Bodman, have been gathering letterpress printed broadsides and artist books, giving talks, presenting exhibits, and in many other small and large ways, keeping the spirit of Al-Mutanabbi Street alive. I'm told that some early submission were focused on war. I hope mine won't be seen as war-focused, though it is impossible not to have that idea hovering nearby. I purposely chose images from daily life, including a sketch of Al-Mutanabbi Street before the blast, along with a mosque, women on the street, men in a cafe - and an American soldier, because that has also been, for too long, part of daily life there. I could not get the image of all that tragic but beautiful Arabic confetti showering down after the bomb went off out of my mind, so I've made that important. The cover text and text across the images are English translations (by Nancy Coffin) of Al-Mutanabbi poems - beautiful language but much of it chillingly prescient about harm and violence. (The title 'The Best Companions are Books Alone' is a quote.) I reduced the size of the images when I printed them before I folded them into the accordion - I wanted to make the book something that could be hidden in a pocket if necessary. The final size is about 3" x 4 1/2, opening to 10." My book is one of three I'll send them - along with the others, one of mine will be donated to the Iraqi National Library in Baghdad. The other two will become part of the exhibits and displays.

Read Beau Beausoleil's description of the Al-Mutanabbi Coalition project here:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/36553491/An-Inventory-of-Al-Mutanabbi-Street

Goya - New Addition to a Complex Body of Work

2011-09-28T13:19:00.001-04:00

Goya has always been hard to pin down. The discovery of a 'new' portrait, albeit hidden under an existing one, just adds to the complex story of this fascinating artist. Who is among the most modern of 'old masters'? Goya. Who made his living painting fawning portraits of powerful court patrons? Goya. Who is one of the most subversive of all painters? Goya. Who was one of the first realist painters? Goya. Who painted the darkest, most terrifying images in all of art? Goya. And did I mention that he had 24 children?

The new painting, an unfinished formal portrait of a man wearing the important bling of a Napoleonic officer (it may even be Joseph Bonaparte, appointed King of Spain by his brother the Emperor) was discovered with the fresh out of the box Scanning Macro X-ray Fluorescence Spectrometry, a technology developed in the Netherlands. This is a technique that "fires high-energy x-rays at the painting, which energizes the atoms causing them to release their own x-rays. By observing and analyzing this information, researchers are able to develop a color map of what lies beneath the top layer of paint. The result shows remarkable detail about what was originally on the canvas."(thanks to Geekosystem.com)

The portrait on top - the only one that counts for most of us - is one of Goya's masterpieces and the only painting by Goya in the Netherlands (at the Rijksmuseum.) It is a beauty - the subject is Judge Don Ramón Satué, a man in whose face intelligence, skepticism, compassion, and confidence all jockey for position. His hair is fashionably feathered forward, his black velvet costume, accented with white ruffles and red sash, is stylishly comfortable - no formal robes for this judge. It was painted in 1823, ten years after the French were driven out of Spain. It seems probable that Goya was commissioned to paint the underlying portrait during the French occupation; one guess for the reuse of the canvas is that he needed to get rid of any evidence of collaboration once Ferdinand VII was restored to the throne. It's unlikely that Goya would have cooperated with the Napoleonic forces willingly. His powerful The Third of May from 1808 is an eyewitness account of injustice; it screams out Goya's protest against the inhumanity of that occupation with his pitting of an innocent man - clearly marked as a symbol of all innocence by his bright white shirt and crucifix pose - against the faceless brutality of a uniformed firing squad.

Goya lived at one of the cruelest and most crucial cusps of history, a time when old tyrannies were exploding in revolutions. Harsh, inhumane oppressions in response, did little to stem the tide of inevitable progress towards equality and democracy, but led to wide-spread misery for many innocent people. Goya witnessed all of this - in his work we find the cycle of history. The golden, sunlit days of court life edge into clear-eyed observations and documents of the wealthy and powerful, perhaps with a touch of muffled but barbed criticism, as in his celebrated portrait, The Family of Carlos IV. The march continues - he spares no detail in his witness to the unspeakable horrors of war with his incredible series of etchings, The Disasters of War, and then we watch him descend into a personal world of darkness, losing his hearing, going into exile in Bordeaux, and creating the searing, unspeakable Black Paintings and Horrors.

Click the link below for an interactive look at the new/old Goya portraits (thanks to The Guardian UK)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/interactive/2011/sep/20/goya-painting-satue-rijksmuseum-interactive?intcmp=239

Philadelphia Local - Works on Paper at PMA

2011-09-21T12:42:00.007-04:00

The Philadelphia Museum of Art, stately and grand, perched on its acropolis like the literal and figurative temple of art that it is, contains never-ending pleasures of great reach and subtlety. You may be aware of its stellar European and American holdings - The Gross Clinic by favorite son Thomas Eakins is a highlight - but you might be surprised at its strengths include breathtaking Eastern art and architecture and a fine contemporary collection. And, more than some other major museums I could mention, PMA makes an effort to reach out to the local art community, a move appropriate for a city with some of this country's top art schools, most within walking distance of the museum. At the moment, the result of this effort is the small but intriguing show Here and Now: Prints, Drawings, and Photographs by Ten Philadelphia Artists. I'm a works on paper artist myself, so this show was right up my alley. The premise is - works on paper by a selection of local artists of sound repute to one degree or another "ranging in age from 25 to 50" (an arbitrary limitation that strikes an oddly foolish note.) Two long-term professors must fulfill the upper limit (their dates are conveniently left off the signage), but most are young, ambitious, and very up-and-coming if not already arrived. Two of the artists exhibit regularly at Gallery Joe, an excellent Old City showcase for works on paper: Mia Rosenthal was my immediate favorite. Her obsessive drawings pull you in close to intricate twists and turnings on a hunt for tiny little creatures that are hidden there, or it may be that you imagine them hiding in the foliage of her fine spidery lines. I especially loved the idea of - and the fact too - of drawing the entire contents of a sample size box of Rice Krispies, laid out Krispie by Krispie in a sinuous necklace of precise, clean, detail on creamy paper. Astrid Bowlby, the other Gallery Joe artist, is known for pushing her drawing off the wall to create Alice-in-Wonderland-like environments. Her offerings for the PMA show are fairly tame but they give the idea. In contrast to the small scale of Rosenthal's work, Serena Perrone works large; her woodcuts have a rugged, energetic quality that she tempers with fine detailed drawing in gold point and silver point. It's a highly unusual pairing that is at once startling and soothing. Daniel Heyman's provocative drypoints are art politics in action - reportage portraits of former Abu Ghraib prisoners, scratched into a metal plate (writing backwards) on the spot as the men related their stories to an American lawyer. The work has the black and white urgency of this morning's newspaper - a metaphor that's fast disappearing, but fitting for evidence of a world that is out of touch with progress.
The photographs in the exhibit moved me less, but that may be the viewpoint of an observer partial to drawing and the work of the human hand. Isaac Tin Wei Lin managed to straddle the line between the two. His bold ink cyber-patterns in harmony (or disharmony) with pastel toned photographs are visually arresting.

(Thanks to Gallery Joe for Bowlby and Rosental images)
Here and Now: Prints, Drawings, and Photographs by Ten Philadelphia Artists is at The Philadelphia Museum of Art until December 4, 2011.
http://philamuseum.org/exhibitions/752.html

So this is Paradise - Buddhist Art at the Asia Society

2011-09-13T16:43:00.002-04:00

The lights are dim, carpeting keeps footsteps quiet, but the exhibit of Buddhist Sculpture at Asia Society is, in fact, a loud statement of courage and perseverance, as well as the power of art, in the face of a difficult political situation. The title of the exhibit, The Buddhist Heritage of Pakistan: Art of Gandhara, explains the problem - this show almost didn't happen. Melissa Chiu, director of the Asia Society Museum, said in a NY Times article “I persisted because this is a unique opportunity for us to show the cultural heritage of Pakistan at a time when U.S.-Pakistan relations are probably at their lowest ever.” And of course, the beauty of it is that, once inside and alone with the art, the world with all its hatreds and anger drops away, and the powerful poetry of this ancient work speaks for itself. Much of it comes from the Lahore Museum, and many of the examples date from the first centuries CE - others are even earlier. The name Gandhara, an ancient kingdom at the junction of what are now Pakistan and Afghanistan, signifies an important watershed for Buddhist art. Here was the nucleus of an intermixing of Asian and Western traditions, prompted by trade along the Silk Road and the Hellenizing influence of Alexander the Great and his Roman successors. There was no human Buddha image before the art of Gandhara, only symbols such as the Buddha's footprints or the Dharma Wheel. (yes, those are swastikas in the toes - it is an ancient benign symbol of cosmic order) With Gandhara begins the new - now ancient - tradition of iconic statues and classical narratives that follow Greek forms of storytelling. Buddha became the calm figure of infinite grace that we often see seated on a lotus, his hands arranged in compassionate mudras, his empty ears stretched by the rich jewels he gave up to find enlightenment and set a path known as the Middle Way. There are chunks of ancient buildings in the exhibit, reminiscent of friezes on Greek temples, telling of the Buddha's conception by an elephant, his escape from the royal palace of his wealthy father, his miracles and teachings. With the Buddha are statues of Bodhisattvas, the holy figures that have not yet left the world: the most beautiful is Maitreya, still draped in jewels, who is prophesied to become Buddha on the next turning of the cycle. The opposite of beauty is death, represented by a rare statue showing the Buddha as a virtual skeleton whose veins clearly show on his bony forehead, coming to understand that the path of the ascetic is not the Way - it's a startling, compelling image. If only the sculpture showing the Buddhist Paradise had made the trip it would still have been a complex and interesting show. This piece is crammed with figures, above, below, and flanking the serene seated Buddha, who is being crowned with what looks suspiciously like a wreath of laurels. Paradise seems to promise much spiritual but also material comfort: Buddha still has no jewelry and fancy trappings but he's the exception. It looks like a comfortable place, even a bit like Hawaii, if we can trust the figures who look to be wearing grass hula skirts. This is a good place to see clearly the mix of cultures: the infrastructure is a mix of Roman arches, Greek columns, and Lotus Thrones. The exhibit is at Asia Society Park Ave and 70th Street, NYC, through Oct 30, 2011.

http://sites.asiasociety.org/gandhara/exhibit-sections/buddhas-and-bodhisattvas/

Rembrandt's human Jesus

2011-09-06T11:48:00.010-04:00

It's hard to imagine coming face to face with a celebrity: what would you do if Angelina Jolie suddenly showed up at your local supermarket? And when it comes to Jesus - famous, divine, historical//mystical - it's impossible. Art doesn't help. The model most people know, especially if they went to Sunday School, is a sort of candy-colored pretty Jesus who looks to be of vaguely Scandinavian heritage. Even 'good' art, and there is an enormous amount of good religious art - art history would be nowhere without Christian imagery - keeps Jesus at arm's length or further. Byzantine versions set the standard for the stern aloof Jesus, very beautiful, but definitely not someone you could sidle up to to ask for a favor. A most famous Byzantine image is Christ the Pantocrator - the Judge - one who appears disinclined to give time off for good behavior. The other extreme is Guido Reni's gentle, painfully beautiful 16th c. Jesus, who suffers great agony without any messy blood or dirt. But then comes Rembrandt. A traveling show, called Rembrandt and the Face of Jesus is now at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, after a stay at the Louvre, and before it goes on to Detroit. It's a small, focused show of quiet pleasures for a Rembrandt lover like me, with a good audioguide to give background on why his versions of Jesus are so revolutionary. First of all, this Jesus is Jewish, just as the real Jesus was. Rembrandt whose house was smack in the midst of the Jewish population of Amsterdam, delighted in the fresh possibilities of this exotic group, newly arrived after persecutions elsewhere. It is said that he became close friends with several Jewish neighbors, and he certainly found models for his oh-so-human Jesus. There is a wall of small studies of heads in the exhibit, the same but different by a slight twist of the neck or a shift in the glance. As I made my way from one to the next, the humanness of Jesus made itself felt, and by the end I could believe him fully capable of sadness, compassion, maybe a little anger, and even a head cold. Rembrandt is the most unusual of religious painters for a number of reasons. Religious painting, long associated with the Roman Catholic Church, was far out of favor in fiercely Protestant, fiercely and newly independent 17th c. Holland. Icons and saints had been banished from the churches; artists painted portraits, landscapes, and earthy genre scenes. Rembrandt painted those too, but he also looked to the Bible, reading it for himself and looking around to see its lessons writ in the faces and gestures of his fellow Amsterdamers. They may wear the requisite Biblical gear, but his saints are a little dumpy, with fleshy Northern faces, and his Jesus is local, and human.

Note: Rembrandt was one of the greatest printmakers in all of history, and there are several etchings in the exhibit. This one, officially titled "Christ Preaching" but known as "The Hundred Guilder Print" because of its high price, is one of his masterpieces.

Stormy Art for Stormy Weather

2011-08-31T13:58:00.002-04:00

A hurricane is a strange event. In my Philadelphia neighborhood, not so far from the coast, full of majestic trees in parks and old churchyards, we worried about branches falling in the heavy winds. Instead we got tons of rain with very little wind and no damage to speak of. We were lucky - not so much those in other places, especially inland areas of Vermont and New York State, where they must have thought a hurricane was not their concern. So, with those unfortunate places and people in mind, here are a few examples of Stormy Art from other times and places. Nobody ever did rain and wind like Hiroshige and Hokusai, the grand Ukiyo-e masters of late 19th century Japan. One glance at Hiroshige's Oshashi Bridge & Atake in a Sudden Shower (1856) and you feel the water pelting down your neck and soaking your clothes. Hokusai's marvelous Ejiri in Suruga Province (1830-1833) with his signature view of Mt. Fuji makes you grab for your hat. This windy image has had a rash of imitators lately, most notably Jeff Wall with his A Sudden Gust of Wind (after Hokusai) (1993) - detail here - and also Carrie Marill's A Sudden Gust of Wind (After Hokusai) 2009. And then there's Winslow Homer, the taciturn New Englander whose watercolors are the stuff of magic. He turned his attention to stormy weather more than once, with some of the greatest examples coming from his trips to Florida, Cuba, and the Bahamas in 1884-1885. One of the most poignant of his narratives in paint is The Gulf Stream (1899) in which a lonely sailor sits helpless, his mast broken and his boat adrift, as the sharks gather in the waves around him. For him the storms - all storms - are nearly over, whether the cloud in the distance is coming or going.

And lastly, a bit of Romantic sentiment to point up the truth and strength of the others. Pierre-Auguste Cot painted The Storm in 1880 with his toolbox full of allegory and pictorial illusion. His reference is not the driving force of the wind or the very real need to take shelter, but the charm of the Greeks and their stories. The past week of earthquakes and hurricanes will also be the stuff of stories, some charming, some not. Good luck to all those who are still struggling with the aftermath of Irene.

Painting the Town with Oldenburg, Furness, and PAFA

2011-08-24T12:45:00.000-04:00

Philadelphia, already rich in public art, has a new guy in town. Claes Oldenburg was here Saturday, installing his giant, goofy 'Paint Torch' at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. Goofy, for Oldenburg, is a term of endearment. His witty, double-take inducing sculptures stop even the Philistines in their tracks - a giant flashlight amid the neon of Las Vegas, a fountain of flying orange peels in Miami, huge, helter-skelter bowling pins in the Netherlands, an ice cream cone teetering over a shopping street in Cologne, Germany. And many more. Claes Oldenburg studied in Chicago then made his name as a Pop Artist in New York in the 60's, with works like 'Soft Toilet' (1966) now in the Whitney Museum of Art, where I once read a note from him saying something about wanting people to see the objects for their forms and shapes, not for their function - that in time the function might disappear, but the object would still be beautiful. The idea is already well along, as with his wonderful 'Typewriter Eraser' (1999 - National Gallery of Art) - try explaining that one to a 15 year old. 'Paint Torch' is the 4th Oldenburg in Philadelphia - it joins 'Big Electric Plug (1970) at the Art Museum, 'Split Button' (1981) on the Penn Campus, and the iconic 'Clothespin' (1976) on Market Street by City Hall. 'Paint Torch', 51 feet high, with a blue handle and a full brush or orange paint in mid-swirl, includes a six-foot glop of a drip for the pavement. Oldenburg sat watching the installation Saturday from a bench, directing it to the exact angle he wanted, the one he thought looked most welcoming. It does have an arc, as you can see by the pictures, that appears to wave you into the plaza of the Pennsylvania Academy of Arts - and over from the huge spanking new convention center across the street. Part of the wit of the work, as with most of Oldenburg's public art, is the context, in this case the also witty, arty, extraordinary Victorian extravaganza that houses the oldest art museum and school in the US. (founded in 1805 by painter Charles Wilson Peale and sculptor William Rush.) The building, which was dedicated in 1876, is a masterpiece by the great Frank Furness who designed more than 600 buildings, too many of which have been destroyed (and was also a Civil War hero) though there are other splendid examples in and around Philadelphia. He was a major influence on later architects of note, including Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright. So a great deal of brush-swishing has gone on in that building - Oldenburg's 'Paint Torch' is a very contemporary tribute to past glories and to the future brilliance being honed in the PAFA school. One of the most famous names associated with PAFA is that of Thomas Eakins, the great American Realist painter, who began his career as an inspiring and iconoclastic teacher in the Furness building the year it opened. On a sadder note, 'Paint Torch' is Oldenburg's first work installed after the 2009 death of his beloved wife and working partner, Coosje van Bruggen, who was essential to his life and work from the 1970's on.
See a slide show of 'Paint Torch' being installed (New York Times)
http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2011/08/23/arts/design/Arts-Brielfy--Oldenburg.html
The website of Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen with a full list of work and installations
http://www.oldenburgvanbruggen.com/

Creativity - Set in Stone at Opus 40 (and finding yours)

2011-08-18T10:24:00.003-04:00

Who can pinpoint where creativity begins or say where it will take the person who allows it into their life? I don't agree with the cliche that 'everyone is an artist' - the talent, perseverance, etc., etc., required to earn that title by a serious committed life in art is not so easy to come by - but every person does contain the capacity to be creative. I would even say that every person has the potential to make, build, or institute something of lasting creative significance for themselves and others. (See note at the end about an opportunity to develop your creativity through a wonderful program.) All this came to mind when I was once again up in the Hudson Valley for great music (see last week's post - this time it was the SummerScape Festival at Bard College) - and once again, happily, had an unexpected, fascinating encounter. Playing hooky one morning from Sibelius, my husband and I followed a back road in the town of Saugerties, lured deep into the woods by a chance notice. At the end of that road we discovered Opus 40, an astonishing site that was added to the Registry of Historic Places in 2001. We pulled into the parking lot and found, first, a ramshackle barn containing a museum of tools, then a split log family house, and finally, to our amazement, a construction that took my breath away as the view opened up and I realized the scope of it. Against a backdrop of Catskill mountains and cloudy sky, I witnessed a creative obsession winding, climbing, and twisting across the remains of an old bluestone quarry, built entirely of that blue-grey material like some ancient Pre-Columbian city. The man behind Opus 40 was Harvey Fite (1903-1976), a sculptor and professor at Bard College, who had started out to be a lawyer, tried the seminary, had a short acting career, and then discovered his true passion for making - making things - three-dimensional, hard, material, things. Opus 40 isn't just a work of art, an installation - it was and is Harvey Fite's life. He wasn't part of any movement or group, though he's now considered a pioneer of the Environmental Movement of the 70's, and the most important show of his work was almost certainly the posthumous tribute in 1977 at the Hirshhorn Museum. If Andy Goldsworthy wasn't inspired by him, he should have been. Part of Fite's inspiration came from his encounter with, in fact, the Pre-Columbian Mayans, after he helped with restoration work in Honduras. When he came home he used the same, mortar free techniques in building Opus 40. Near the entrance it mounts to a high viewpoint crowned by a standing stone - the Monolith - then broad sloping paths lead you away, past deep crevices, around smooth, tailored walls, as neat and tidy as cross-stitch work, past the crumbling heart of the old quarry, onto grass paths that take you further into the woods, to more walls, more stone, more paths. The ground turns a bit muddy, signifying the presence of water, and as you circle back you find pools, bright green with algae, fitted snugly into curving walls, and another of clear water with the rusted remains of a well-worn diving board signifying a reward at the end of what must have been many long hot hard-working days. At one moment it all seems organic, as if this complex puzzle of stone, land, and water had just willed itself into being, but the next moment one stands in awe of one man's patience for detail in the service of his broad vision. http://www.opus40.org/fite.htm
It's not likely that your search for creativity will lead you to build an Opus 40, but if you would like to free yourself to develop your creative side, strengthen your confidence in your artistic capacity, and get more pleasure out of the right side of your brain, think about signing up for the program: The Artist's Way (based on the ground-breaking book by Julia Cameron) with Stephanie Costello, an excellent clinical social worker in Philadelphia who has had phenomenal success helping people find their own rich sources for creative and artistic satisfaction. The next program begins September 14 (both evening and daytime sessions) - you can see details on Stephanie's website http://www.stephaniecostello.com/for_groups.html#artists Stephanie is warm, compassionate, and passionate about helping people to be happier and more creative - this is a great opportunity! (Note: I've never personally been a fan of the Julia Cameron approach - what prompted me to endorse this program was hearing Stephanie explain how she uses it, and how people have responded over the years she's been doing it. )
Thanks to Rick Fitzgerald for the pictures!

Hudson River Art Updated and Ongoing

2011-08-09T09:43:00.001-04:00

The Hudson Valley, up where it meets the broad shoulders of New York's Adirondack Mountains, is as calm and golden on a summer weekend as ever it was in one of the paintings by the artists of the Hudson River School - here View of the Hudson River by Seth Eastman (1834). In between lakes and mountain shadows old family motels with nostalgic clusters of cabins line the roads, little Norman Rockwell vignettes of 1950's togetherness that are a bit sad to see, but mostly still open for business. I was up that way there for the timeless pleasure of great music - in this case the Philadelphia Orchestra at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center - and by the luckiest of chances also met a most interesting contemporary artist. Bruno LaVerdiere is deeply rooted in the Adirondacks - the great and mighty Hudson runs near his home, though at that point it's a surprisingly tame and burbling stream - but he got there by way of a childhood in Maine, a Benedictine monastery in the Pacific Northwest, a few years in New York City, and an impressive career teaching and working in the US and Europe. Over the course of 30 years he turned a summer cabin into a comfortable compound of art and life, where the view from all corners is trees, trees, trees - until you swing round to a clear miles-long view of a broad blue sky and a favorite mountain. Before the house the first glimpse of Bruno's work came bit by bit along his private dirt road, standing ceramic forms spotted amid the ferns and wild greenery. Tomb forms, he says they are, a series inspired by a local graveyard after he moved up into this quiet corner from New York City. The history of a rich artistic life continues in his studio, a sprawling custom built structure with plenty of room for new and old work, and all the cool tools a gadget-loving artist would ever need. A huge car kiln sits behind the studio like a dormant Fire God, resting patiently while these days Bruno is busy with painting. He says he has discovered color after a long love affair with black and white, and he appears to be having a great time. He's one of those artists who makes it all work, makes it significant no matter how casual the effort - the standing ceramic forms, slashed and pummeled into iconic, compelling shapes, the huge inky abstract drawings, the series of simple, single cats, the latest colorful encaustic explorations founded on a geometric house diagram, and a huge ceramic horn hanging on the porch, ready for all to try their luck. Thank you, Bruno, for homemade yogurt with homegrown blueberries, for a refuge from bats, and especially for the art, the laughter, and all the great stories.

Norway - sympathy, memories, and Monet

2011-07-27T11:35:00.001-04:00

This post goes out with deepest sympathy and grief for the country and people of Norway. I was there once years ago. My husband and I took the Hurtigruten, one in a fleet of small ships that travels up and down the coastline delivering passengers and mail. We went from Bergen to the limits of Nord Norge at the Russian border, and back again, a voyage of more than a week. I'll never forget the excitement of that trip, passing the Arctic Circle early on, adding layers as we went north, standing transfixed by the astounding scenery of water, mountains, glaciers, and coast - and with blessedly fine weather though it was April and still deep winter in much of Norway. We were in and out of small and large harbors, day and night, constantly marking new superlatives - the northern most Gothic cathderal (Trondheim), the northernmost deciduous forest, etc. Sea eagles flew over our heads, dolphins jumped around the prow, gorgeous King Eider ducks thronged the waters. It is a most beautiful country with an envied history of peace and cooperation among their people. The events of last week are still - will always be - hard to believe. Claude Monet also went to Norway once. He liked to paint snow scenes so he too went North in winter (1885) - though went he got there he found a bit more snow than he'd anticipated - and apparently deplored his own lack of success with skiing. With sympathy and respect, and in the middle of a summer heat wave around here, here are a few of Monet's cool views of the great country of Norway.

Expensive Art - Holbein's Darmstadt Madonna

2011-07-15T16:20:00.001-04:00

Big news today - Very Expensive Art! In this case, the Art is the Darmstadt Madonna by Hans Holbein, and the sales figure was somewhere around 70 million dollars. That may sound like a lot of money but for this breathtaking masterpiece it is rock bottom. I was amazed to read of the sale - it is incredible to think that a work of this importance could still be in private hands - and that it will remain the property of an individual. The sale moves it from the private hands of a prince with a big inheritance tax bill to pay to the hands of a German industrialist, who, it is reported, will allow it be seen by the public. (The price would have been much higher if it had been allowed to leave Germany but it is a national treasure and must remain in the country.) Hans Holbein is best known for his portraits of Henry VIII and his English court. Looking for work as a result of the religious turmoil dividing Europe in the wake of the Reformation, he got to King Henry via the Humanist circles of Thomas More on the recommendation of the philosopher Erasmus, and the rest is literally history. Lucky Henry to have Holbein as his official court painter as he demolished England's Catholic traditions and built the Anglican Church - and lucky us, to have so many beautiful Holbein portraits of contemporary English court and society! The Darmstadt Madonna was painted in 1526, the same year Holbein left for England. It is a Catholic painting, a remnant of a German mindset that was eroding under the pressures of the Reformation; the wealthy banker/soldier Jakob Meyer von Hasen, kneeling at the side of the Madonna and Child, is a staunch opponent of the new belief and likely needed the divine protection they represent. Two boys, a child and an infant play as if unconcerned but it is thought that at least one of them had already died. On the other side are two of von Hasen's wives, one deceased, and his living daughter, who bows meekly as she fingers her long coral rosary. Holbein's landmark style is a vivid amalgam of new and old, North and South - the incredible detail and clarity of Northern Europe, and the deep space and robust forms that show the influence of the Italian Renaissance. Holbein would be a supreme artist at any moment in time, but this masterpiece is the perfect testament to a singular man's extraordinary skill as well as a clear, articulate document marking where humanity was at a particularly significant place and time.
I have also posted this on http://www.artsmarttalk.com/blogartsmarttalk.html where you can see the pictures (and more of them) in a slide show with captions, and where the ArtSmartTalk blog is hosted on my own website. I'd love to know what you think! I'd be grateful if you would read the blog on http://www.artsmarttalk.com/blogartsmarttalk.html and take the poll to let me know which format you like better.

Cy Twombly, Line and Space Man

2011-07-06T15:41:00.022-04:00

Cy Twombly, gone from us at 83. Not a bad life - born in Virginia, named for a baseball player, kicked around Europe with his buddy Robert Rauschenberg, was at the legendary Black Mountain College, saw his paintings sell for multi-millions, spent the last fifty years living in Italy. He was - and will continue to be - one of my contemporary favorites. Here are a few of the reasons: his ice-dancing, free-flying, rope-throwing, calligraphy that looped and trailed around, across, and all over his canvases, blurring all distinctions between writing and drawing. His command of space - the beautiful empty stuff between the lines. He made it all look so easy and so much fun. He loved history and Greek myths. He let black and white (and shades of gray) be almost enough, with just enough color for sparkle where it was needed. He didn't write much about his work but here's a nice quote from an interview in 2000 “Each line is (now) the actual experience with its own innate history. It does not illustrate – it is the sensation of its own realisation.” Roland Barthes once said about his work: "It is in a wobbly line that we find the truth of a pencil.” His effect on people could be extreme - I know artists who don't care for him at all, but in 2007 one Twombly lover showed her passion by planting a lipstick kiss on a canvas (indelible, unfortunately - she was held responsible for the damage.) Here are a few examples: 'Poems of the Sea', a set of 24 works on paper from 1959, 'Apollo and the Artist (1975), and a view of 'Fifty Days at Illium,' ruminations on Greek ventures from the installation in the Philadelphia Museum of Art. If you have thoughts or feelings about Twombly and his work, leave a comment to remember him.

That Story, Well Told - The Steins, PIcasso, Matisse, and Modern Art

2011-06-30T11:05:00.000-04:00

We all know the story: Gertrude Stein goes to Paris, buys art from local artists Picasso and Matisse, and MODERN ART is launched. Or something like that. There's more to the story, of course, and it's now on display at the Museum of Modern Art in San Francisco. The setting is particularly fitting because the important players in the story - Leo, Gertrude, Michael, and Sarah Stein - were from the Bay Area, and the money for the now iconic paintings including Picasso's famous portrait of Gertrude, Matisse's shattering Femme au Chapeau, and many more, came from family businesses in cable cars and SF real estate. Leo was the first to head for Paris - he was something of a dilettante, a rich boy educated at Harvard with ambitions to be an artist - his connections in the Paris art scene started everything off. Gertrude, the youngest of the 5 Stein children, follows and brother and sister set up together on the Left Bank, buying art and opening the famous salon where they welcome artists and adventurous amateurs of art. Michael Stein, the eldest brother, and his charming, intelligent wife, Sarah, joined them soon after, also buying art and holding salons to introduce the new revolutionary art to a perplexed public. The paintings that were such a shock then have become so comfortable and familiar - whoever thinks of Matisse as startling and unpalatable now - but the show helps the viewer travel back to a time when the new forms and colors stuck in the craw like a hard piece of apple, unable to be processed. An interesting aspect of the exhibition is the inclusion of furniture from the apartment at 27 rue de Fleurus, Gertrude's base - heavy wood with muted finishes - apparently she felt it necessary for viewers to rest their eyes on something solid and dependable when the art became overwhelming. There are wonderful paintings and drawings here, some well known from American museums, a few from lesser known institutions, and a surprising number from private collections including the extraordinary Matisse portrait of a young sailor, but this is a documentary exhibition of great value for the story of Modern Art. Family photographs, intimate notes and letters, an amazing film taken from a cable car on Market Street San Francisco days before the 1906 earthquake - the stage set of the artistic revolution is set clearly and with great attention to detail. Sarah Stein emerges out of the shadow of her celebrated sister-in-law as a true hero; her active encouragement and support of Matisse no doubt allowed him to survive physically and mentally during some hard early times. She and Michael provided the impetus for Matisse to start his school - one room in the exhibit is devoted to his academy, including her careful notes on his teaching and two highly competent figure studies done by her in his classes. The part of the story that doesn't ordinarily surface is included as well: after Alice B. Toklas arrives (also from San Francisco) relations between Gertrude and brother Leo become strained and their partnership comes to a fractious end. He leaves with the Renoirs and she keeps the Picassos. Sarah and Michael eventually return to the Bay Area, and their collection is gradually dispersed as she has to contend with a grandson's gambling debts. (SF MOMA is one of the beneficiaries - Femme au Chapeau is the centerpiece of their permanent collection.) Once Picasso and Matisse prices start rising the Steins turn to younger artists but, although some names are familiar and the show provides plenty of examples, it certainly isn't the same. It appears that this show won't travel, so if you are heading to San Francisco between now and September 6, plan to see it. (Reserve tickets online http://www.sfmoma.org/exhib_events/exhibitions/details/stein_tickets)

Luck, Dots, and Painting: Jennifer Bartlett at Locks Gallery

2011-06-21T12:21:00.000-04:00

Talent is great, but LUCK is often the elephant in the room in art careers. One of my favorite artists from the 80's - or at least one particular show that made an artist a favorite - was Jennifer Bartlett with her exhaustive series of scenes of a banal
garden in the south of France, where she stayed for a period of months in the late 1970's. Jennifer Bartlett's biography includes a college friendship with Elizabeth Murray, and a list of instructors with names like James Rosenquist, Jim Dine, Robert Rauschenberg, and Claes Oldenberg. Luck is a great help in getting started, but you still have to do something with it. When I saw that exhibit of Bartlett's In the Garden series at Paula Cooper I was immediately drawn to the rich color, the heady sense of green life around a small pool, and the nearly inexhaustible creative possibilities of a single subject - an idea that has always been important to me in my work and my studio teaching (the artist makes a subject great through imagination and creativity; it is not the subject that makes great art.) (the 'water' painting shown at the top is not from that series, but So when I walked into the Locks Gallery in Philadelphia last week to see the current Jennifer Bartlett show, I hoped for that same rush of kindred feeling and excitement. It was there - a little. But not on the first floor - the introduction to the show and the artist (for anyone not familiar with her) is an extensive collection of minimalist works from the early 70's - 'circuit board' painting, in keeping with a Modern Art moment, but boring as can be. Up close - very close, there was a bit of satisfaction in the variation in the tiny dots between ruled lines, especially in the few with color. Upstairs the 'old' Jennifer Bartlett of my admiration was more in evidence, with large lush paintings of foliage and flowers where close inspection yielded an appreciation of the links to her fascination with grids and order, but here there were loose, painterly brushstrokes in rich beautiful colors. And then, again, the minimalist returned - this time the dots and stripes in fluorescent colors. My sense was of a phase for catching her artistic breath until she finds that lush painting impulse again. I look forward to it.

The Barnes - 'New' and 'Old'

2011-06-08T10:48:00.002-04:00

It's time to talk about the Barnes Collection, whose days in its suburban Philadelphia mansion are fast coming to a close. I last commented on Barnes matters after seeing the plans for the new Center City building at a city hearing. I was enthusiastic about the move then and I remain so, even with the understanding that some things will be lost in the translation. These include the experience of Dr. Barnes's original setting and with it the aura of the master's touch, with the knowledge that he stood here and placed that there, on occasion conversing with the visiting Matisse to inspect the placement of his Bathers mural, or with Bertrand Russell, whom Barnes hired to lecture in his classes in the building. The mansion in Upper Merion is beautiful in its own right, as are the surrounding gardens which were a haven for Dr and Mrs Barnes when they resided there and continue to be important to horticulturalists. The original Barnes residence will, after July, become an archive open to scholars, an fitting and enduring role for this singular collection and its interesting history. But much will be gained in the move. Most obviously, better access to the jaw-dropping, over-the-top incredible collection. The 'New Barnes,' now nearly finished, sits in pride of place along the Benjamin Franklin Parkway (the Champs Elysees of Philadelphia - with its allee of trees and long views it is one of the great urban spaces of America) in easy proximity to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Rodin Museum, the Franklin Institute, the Free Library, etc. The design seems jarringly modern after the earlier Beaux Arts gentility, but my understanding of the plan from what I saw is that it is respectful of the fact and spirit of the original while also accommodating the practical needs of a modern art museum. The designers, Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects, took pains to replicate the exact orientation of the galleries to light and even to the details of the landscaping visible through the windows. The arrangement of the collection will, of course, continue to reflect the valid, if idiosyncratic, ideas of Dr. Barnes with all the bits and pieces of metalwork stuck between the masterpieces. Dr. Barnes would probably not be happy - from what I know he was quite a grump and was not often happy - he had quarrels with the Philadelphia Museum, the Philadelphia art establishment of his day, even with Bertrand Russell and Matisse - (this painting by Giorgio di Chirico captures him nicely) but he made clear his intentions to make his collection accessible and he showed a strong belief in the value of African art and in the African-American community - the move will allow more space to show the breadth of this astonishing collection as well as to show it to more visitors including school groups, most especially those for whom the trek to Upper Merion, with accompanying rules for reservations and parking allotments, was difficult, if not impossible. The legal hassles and the vitriolic assertions about the Barnes have been exhaustive and acrimonious to a ridiculous degree (if you need to know more, it's easy to find the history going back many years.) It is now time to celebrate this extraordinary treasure and be glad that it is intact and available - it's a new jewel for Philadelphia. What do you think? Were you ever at the 'Old' Barnes? Do you think the advantages of the move outweigh the experience of the original?

crazy mixed up Art Castle

2011-05-31T14:49:00.000-04:00

If you were an archaeologist with a medieval turn of mind and a Victorian sense of interior design, what would you do if an aunt died and left you a fortune? If you were Henry Chapman Mercer, you'd also be an ardent Arts & Crafts proponent and you'd build Fonthill, an outrageous fantasy castle in lovely Bucks County, Pennsylvania (a short drive NW of Philadelphia.) In 1898, before Mercer built Fonthill (in 1908, entirely of hand-mixed concrete) he created the Moravian Pottery & Tile Works to produce art tiles with designs inspired by his 10 years of travel in Europe, where he clearly made a close study of all the historical sites. He returned and became a member of the UPenn Archeology department (despite having no degree in the subject) but it was when his wealthy aunt died that he really let loose with the Arts & Crafts. The Arts & Crafts movement, a reaction to industrialization that promoted such painstakingly patient arts as hand carved furniture, closely patterned textiles and wallpapers, and hand-printed books, was particularly strong in the late 1800's; major figures include William Morris in England and Elbert Hubbard in the US. Mercer was a bit late for that party but he seems not to have noticed. Every corner, every nook and cranny (Mercer should be a patron saint of nooks and crannies), truly every inch - walls, floors, and ceilings - is decorated in his quirky obsessive, handwork-attentive style. The ceilings are a particular high point - the tour guide described the way in which laborers piled mounds of dirt on a platform across the tops of columns. When the shape was correct, they then covered the dirt with sand and pressed in tile decorations - thus working not only blindly but upside down and backwards - and poured the concrete ceiling. Only when it was set completely could they see if they had made any mistakes - there were very few from what I could see, but they couldn't have done much about them if there had been. The whole place is a wonder. One of my favorites was the room with columns in which Mercer imbedded small clay cuneiform tablets from early Mesopotamian civilizations (2500-3000 bce) then surrounded them with tiles giving dates and details of their content - trade in sheep, names of kings, etc. Also the Columbus Room, with a jigsaw puzzle ceiling with the map of the world and an illustrated history of the age of exploration (all made of tiles set into concrete, remember - upside down, backwards, working blindly.) There's no interior photography allowed so I'm using what I could find to give an idea. Pictures don't really do it justice in any case. There's no way to convey the moody, solitary genius spirit of the place with its twisting staircases, odd angles, slightly morbid atmosphere (Mercer died in a narrow bed in one of the nook/crannies) that is both claustrophobic and fascinating - you need to see it.
Note: the Moravian Pottery Works continues to operate, still churning out Henry's designs.There is also a nearby Mercer Museum. The website for all Mercer related sites is at http://www.mercermuseum.org/

Balancing Art and Business

2011-05-24T14:02:00.000-04:00

I saw a sign recently that said 'If you're an artist you're already a success.' It's a nice thought and true to some extent, but there are still bills to pay. I'm always interested in how artists manage to juggle the demands of art with the demands of practical life, whether in history or at the current moment. As a working artist, my interest in the question is not academic. So in pursuit of answers to the question, for myself and in general, I went to the SURTEX/Stationery Trade show last week in New York. So much color, so much design and pattern, much cuteness and cleverness - aisle after aisle. I learned a good deal (for example, did you know that there is an award called the Louie for the best in greeting card design?) and picked up plenty of useful information. Some booths took up a lot of real estate, but as I wandered I kept my eye out for the smaller, more personal approach. I found quite a few artist/entrepreneurs who are managing the balance very well. Amy Smyth has had enough success with her basic line - http://www.amysmythmadeit.com - that she has initiated a second one, Ecka & Pecka, named, charmingly, for the imaginary friends of her niece. She spoke of the satisfactions of taking the business side seriously in order to make a life from her creative work. Further on, I found a couple of family efforts. J-Dig cards - http://jdigcards.bigcartel.com - is the product of two brothers who share the creative work (one for the ideas, one for the designs) with the help of a spouse who does the marketing, while Clouds & Ink http://www.cloudsandink.com is the combined effort of a daughter and her father - he creates paintings from which she selects patterns to use with her line drawings in card designs. They all reported success and satisfaction with the creative and business sides of their efforts. If you're an artist who has found a good balance, leave me a comment and let me know how you do it - I'd love to help spread the word.

Quilting Women and Tibetan Monks

2011-05-13T16:44:00.000-04:00

I'm a great advocate of finding common links between disparate cultures and people - I make that sense of shared humanity the primary tenet of much of my teaching - so I was pleased to see that today's NYTimes articles about the Quilt exhibit at the Folk Art Museum (the final exhibit before it turns the building over to MOMA) and the Tibetan Arts exhibit at the Newark Museum gave me new material. The organizing principles of quilt making and of the mandalas of Tibetan monks are both reflections of a similar human need - for order, pattern, and regularized meaning and beauty. Quilts seem much less exotic - homey, crafted of familiar low value materials such as simple cottons or even discarded clothing, normally made by women whose arts are traditionally less valued than the brawnier arts of men, they come into being to serve a practical purpose - warmth for a bed and a spark of color amid the drabness of daily life. Tibetan mandalas, on the other hand, are made as a means to touch the divine and act as a form of prayer. They are painstakingly constructed, colored grain of sand by colored grain of sand, according to ancient traditions of iconography, by revered holy men. Part of their meaning is that they never last - like fragile life itself, the physical reality of the mandala is soon dispersed to the winds and gone. What remains is only the truth of the memory. But is that so very different from a quilt? First, note the pictures and see the fine use of geometry and mathematics in both forms. But similarities go deeper: like the iconography of the mandalas quilt patterns were often revered as a connection to a personal or community history with designs being passed down from generation to generation. The Tibetan community of monks relates as well to the communal activity of quilting bees. Yet surely much of the historical handiwork of woman was created painstakingly in isolated living rooms - no matter how much effort went into each careful stitch there might be no one to notice but a few family members. As with the ephemeral mandalas, the creator of a quilt had to find in the act the satisfaction of creation. And with the exception of cloth work preserved with care, like these quilts at the Folk Art Museum, much is gone forever, used up with constant wear - blown away by the winds of time. Both these exhibits display works of great, and very different beauty and meaning, but together they say something deeply true about being human.

http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2011/05/12/arts/design/20110513-folk.html
http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2011/05/12/arts/design/20110513-tibet.html

Working with Flowers - you're invited!

2011-05-03T11:47:00.000-04:00

Flowers, like children, are tricky subjects for artists. Both have such innate sweetness and beauty that the challenge is to find something to say that isn't cloying or sentimental. Flowers have been on my mind lately as I've been preparing work for a show that opens tomorrow. It doesn't hurt that the flowering trees and tulips in my city neighborhood are particularly lush and fragrant this Spring, too - every step out the door brings a feast of color and fragrance. Most people know Van Gogh's Irises - for the extraordinary price they commanded a few years ago as much as for the spectacular image of strong lusty life he created - but he wasn't the only one who tackled the subject and came up with something unique. Georgia O'Keefe is another familiar in the language of art and flowers. Where Van Gogh celebrated the twiny vigor of a healthy patch of earth, O'Keefe stepped up close and gave us intimate, forceful portraits of individual flowers. One of Van Gogh's important influences was Hokusai, who with other Japanese Ukiyo-e artists made prints of familiar scenes - these irises are an example of Hokusai's keen eye and lovely sense of arrangement on a page. One of my favorite flower artists is Rachel Ruysch, a still-life painter from the Dutch Golden Age of the 17th century - this little painting is a poem to the beauty of flowers but with a rich gravitas that contradicts any lingering sentiment. I've included one of my paintings, a spray of tulips in a white vase. Please come to the show if you're in the Philly area - you'll see not only my work (with some of my handmade artist books) but also that of 4 other artists, including weaving, ceramics, watercolors and drawing.

2nd Floor Front Gallery - 1704 Walnut Street, Philadelphia PA 19103 - Wednesday May 4 5-8pm (opening), Thursday May 5 Noon-6pm, Friday May 6 4-9pm, Saturday May 7 Noon-5pm. (The Gallery is in a working architects office, an interesting space located at Walnut and 17th St near Rittenhouse Square)

Tricks and More - Ron Isaacs

2011-04-22T10:28:00.000-04:00

A black dress speeds by, trailing sleeves and dry branches. A fine old christening dress disintegrates into chalk lines on a blackboard. A man's white dress shirt, circa 1875, sprouts a small forest of branches. You're in the world of Ron Isaacs, master craftsman and trompe l'oeil magician. There is mystery everywhere, writ in solid evidence on the walls of the Snyderman-Works Gallery in Old City, Philadelphia. Isaacs works in wood, birch plywood, to be specific. Delicate dry leaves, smooth gabardine, fine crocheted lace, wispy muslin with embroidered borders - all wood. You read the label, note the fact, and then return to the work without believing it; your eyes and mind tussle against each other in a rich and interesting game. There is knowledge of past masters here - William Michael Harnett especially, with his delight in tactile deception and fine detail - as well as a sense of the past, and of time passing. An autumnal theme runs throughout, recalling the twist of the heart that comes with the turn of that season. There is a hint of death in the air, evoked not only by dry leaves and bare branches but by the nostalgia implicit in the styles of the clothes. Someone once lived here, these works say. One, titled Improve Each Shining Hour, is a dress of a particular green with cream polka dots - a 40's icon complete with neatly buttoned sleeves and collar, here presented with cutout boxes filled with scissors (also wood - don't forget!) It recalls the neat tidy tasks of women - sewing, handwork - the slight wrinkling of the fabric visible at close range reminds one of a time before permanent press, when the iron and ironing board were a daily presence. One box, squarely over the pubic area, has a large pair of scissors pointing straight down - a hint of sex, perhaps, but perhaps not really the point (the scissors have a blunted tip.) A spring note appears in the work titled Overtaken, which sprouts colorful yellow and purple iris buds, rising out of the hem of a deep blue/green dress with demure lace collar. They bring a fresh damp smell into the air, but again there is a slight ominous note; the nostalgic style of the dress seems to have it sinking gracefully into a fecund swamp. The christening dresses (there are two) are sweet and delicate but perhaps most of all they carry the sense of lives lost. The Queen of January is a masterful work. The rich finely-detailed fabric, a tea-dyed ivory color, is thick and expensive looking; this christening took place in winter in a northern climate - or was it used to guard a tiny lost life against an eternal cold? The dusty spray of dry leaves shooting out of the skirt speak of both possibilities. There is so much to Isaacs's work - this exhibit is a pleasure for the senses and the intellect.
At the Snyderman-Works Gallery through May 14th
http://www.snyderman-works.com/exhibitions/nature-morte-transfigured-sculptural-still-life

Serious Eye Candy - Roberto Capucci

2011-04-12T09:44:00.037-04:00

'Spectacular, stunning, dazzling, amazing - where do you begin with the work of Roberto Capucci, the Italian designer whose work is currently on view at the Philadelphia Museum of Art? The exhibit, Art into Fashion, showcases a magician of fabric and color with a long career that includes some film work (Theorem by Piero Pasolini 1968) and many extravagant showings in various European locales. He is not a work-a-day kind of fashion designer - his statements about distancing himself from the commercial and institutional demands of the fashion trade make that clear, but even if he hadn't said a word, the work on displays testifies clearly that this is not Art INTO Fashion, but ART on its own terms. Many of the designs - most are more or less formal 'party dresses' - are given the name 'Sculpture Dress' - emphasizing that the point is not how the dress would look on a woman's body, but how it looks by itself. In fact, in an accompanying video, the clothes in action looked somewhat awkward; folded and pleated appendages that were spectacular as details on the stationary work, bumped and jerked against the model as she walked. But who cares? No one can afford these anyway, so they are fun to appreciate as sculpture in the round. Color bowls you over the minute you walk in - Capucci has a rich drenched palette of glorious jewel tones - green, pink, magenta, clear red, blue, turquoise that he mate with gleaming taffetas and sensuous satins - against black backgrounds and under dramatic lighting, the exhibit makes for a delicious experience. He also the skills of an engineer/sculptor and a whimsical imagination - you never know what he's going to do next - ruffles, patches, pleats, folds - the possibilities keep opening up as you watch. There is an underlying debt to nature throughout, paid out in the use of materials - a dress covered with polished pebbles, another belted with bamboo - as well as themes and ideas. A dress titled 'Bougainvillea' is a paean to the namesake vine - the multicolored ruffles twine up the core garment, as if growing before your eyes.
Sculpture is not always this chic - this exhibit is fun and interesting on several levels.
Art Into Fashion is at the Philadelphia Museum of Art until June 5, 2011.

The News from China

2011-04-05T15:27:00.001-04:00

Art is still very powerful. If you ever doubted it, you just have to read today's news. The focus is on China, and 'power' is defined by extremes. One the one hand, the art market is buzzing at the $10.1 million dollar price of a painting by a living Chinese artist, Zhang Xiaogang. One the other is a very different show of power - the disturbing news of the disappearance of Ai Weiwei, arguably China's most important artist - in fact, arguably one of the world's most important artists at this moment. Ai Weiwei designed the 'Birds Nest' Olympics stadium (a project he has since disowned) but that is hardly the cause of the actions taken against him. Chinese authorities have harassed him for years because of his often elegant, sometimes subtle, but always outspoken protests again human indignities and injustices, and this week the stakes went way up when he was detained and his Beijing studio raided. It is interesting to try to understand why Zhang Xiaogang appears to have escaped disfavor, despite what seem to be critical elements in his work, while Ai Weiwei is marked for harsh treatment. Both have shown widely in the West and have a great deal of international stature. Zhang Xiaogang's series 'Bloodlines,' based on old family photos, presents a view of China trapped in a motionless reality of obedience - mother, father, child, all neat, somber, and nearly interchangeable. The expensive triptych, 'Forever Lasting Love,' is a surreal, Bosch-like landscape of global cultural, sexual, religious(ish) symbols - a fat American-looking turkey, Hindu-seeming ascetics in a sort of Nativity scene, a vagina-like flowering tree sprouting heads, etc. It may be hard to understand exactly, but it has a human and artistic logic, with recognizable bodies, faces, trees. Ai Weiwei, by contrast, may be more of a threat because his work is more slippery - at first glance it means little beyond the obvious, but as you think about it.... Art that cause one to think makes certain regimes very uncomfortable. For example, Ai Weiwei had a recent installation at the Tate Modern - I saw it when I was in London in December. A room of sunflower seeds, each one made of porcelain and hand-painted by an anonymous Chinese worker, formed a gray sea of tiny elements, each one exactly alike, none of them standing out in any way. A more overtly critical work was his response to the loss of so many children in the 2009 earthquake as a result of poorly constructed schools, when he used childrens backpacks to spell out the pained cry of a grieving parent. Other strikes against him seem to be that he is openly critical of Chinese policies on Twitter - he has 75,000 followers, and he is comfortable in the West (he lived for an extended period in New York.) A large public art project by Ai Weiwei, based on the animals of the Chinese Zodiac, will be installed in New York soon and will be on display at 59th and 5th Avenue from May 2 - July 15. Let's all hope he is there for it.

Liz and Warhol

2011-03-23T17:55:00.001-04:00

RIP Elizabeth Taylor - what a life. Her portrait by Andy Warhol from 1964 shows her when she was 32 - she'd been in the movies for 23 years already, having signed her first contract with Universal Pictures at the age of 9. He also made a series of images featuring her in National Velvet when she was 11. She was an inevitable draw for him - he created much of his own fame by his fascination with the shadow and substance of celebrity and beauty. He once said that a celebrity should know the difference between themselves and their image. "An actress should count up her performances, a model her photographs. This way, he said, 'you'd would always know exactly what you're worth, and you don't get stuck thinking your product is you and your fame". A fitting match is Liz's comment, quoted in Mel Gussow's NY Times obituary “The public me,” she said, “the one named Elizabeth Taylor, has become a lot of hokum and fabrication — a bunch of drivel — and I find her slightly revolting.” Warhol died in 1987 (shortly after my one and only in-person encounter with him, at a party, where he stood in the corner giving the rest of us a cold-eyed stare - 'observing,' his noted preference for social interactions) and the portraits he made of now-dead celebrities seem more and more elegiac - less sensational and more richly beautiful. The sharp separations of color dictated by the silkscreen process he used give the images a straightforward, robust kind of vigor that both underlines and confronts the fragility of some of the celebrities he recorded. Tragedy and human frailty were as much the attraction for him as beauty and fame: Marilyn Monroe, Jackie Kennedy, Liz Taylor - and Warhol himself. These images that seemed so 'Pop' and transient when they were made now have a kind of poetic depth, and form some of our most iconic memories.

For Japan

2011-03-14T18:16:00.000-04:00

The relentlessly tragic, heartrending images coming out of battered Japan push everything else aside. See the end of this post for ways to help. 'The Great Wave' by Hokusai came to my mind as I watched those horrifying washes of water destroying airplanes, buildings, container ships, cars, homes and lives like it all was so much doll house furniture. Hokusai, one of Japan's great artists and one of the greatest artists - period - created his famous Wave image in the 1830's as part of the series '36 Views of Mt. Fuji.' Each one of the woodblock prints - part of a genre called 'Ukiyo-e' - is a little microcosm, a snapshot of people going about their business under the shadow of the majestic volcanic cone of Mt Fuji (located about 100 miles SW of Tokyo.) In each of the images, including the Great Wave, workers of bustle about, fishing, shrimping, planting rice, carrying heavy loads, cutting timber, shaping barrels, etc. Occasionally workers stop to rest, or a flutter of pretty women chatter as they gaze across the water at the mountain. Mt Fuji is always there, though sometimes you have to look for it - Hokusai is very clever with his compositions. Hokusai and Hiroshige, both great Ukiyo-e masters, show clearly Japan's fragile, eternal relationship with nature - with harsh weather, with steep-sided mountains, with a sea that is as rich and generous as it is dangerous. Their work is also a tribute to the people of Japan, who have for centuries toiled in concert with their land, giving each other a hand with large and small tasks, putting one foot in front of the next to get the job done. If you can help, please do.

http://www.mercycorps.org/

http://www.google.com/crisisresponse/japanquake2011.html
For a complete look at Hokusai's series '36 Views of Mt. Fuji' (a few more than 36, because the series was so popular when it was published) go to:

http://www.man-pai.com/Grandes_series/Hokusai_Fuji36/hokusai_36_vistas_monte_fuji_e.htm

Artists Fighting Back

2011-03-04T11:50:00.006-05:00

“Art is, like, the most worthless degree anyone can get. Like, haha, they have a degree in making shit with popsicle sticks.” This foolish and ignorant statement, overheard on a subway, has triggered a project out of Philadelphia called Artistic Rebuttal. The idea is to get as many artists as possible to make a page for a book that will make a statement about the importance of the arts. It will be presented in Washington for Arts Advocacy Day(s) April 4 + 5. Sponsored by Americans for the Arts http://www.americansforthearts.org/, Arts Advocacy Day is geared toward getting the word to Congress and a broader audience that the arts are not a foolish waste of money but in fact form the heart and soul of any viable, ambitious, respectable civilization. Look around you - art, architecture, design, fashion, cars, websites, movies, etc. etc. - art, craftsmanship, design, the man-made visual world - it's all art. Children given a solid education in the arts are far better problem solvers than those who know nothing of the challenges of design, form, color, composition. Art can promote open-mindedness towards new ways of thinking, free people from hide-bound ideas and from the tiredness of the same old thing. The work of Americans for the Arts (50 years old this year) is bound to be hard going in the current political climate, when ignorance and foolishness are the banners flying from too many flagpoles. Go to the website - see what Americans for the Arts is doing - and see what you can do to help. If you're an artist, check out the Artistic Rebuttal project - http://artisticrebuttal.tumblr.com/callforentries - add your voice. I'm working on my contribution right now.

Dazzling Heroics and Gorgeous Horses

2011-02-24T11:10:00.000-05:00

The Shahnama, the ancient Persian epic crammed with brave, handsome kings, evil demons, fabulous deeds and mythic battles, is one of the most famous stories in the world. Written over a 30 year period (around 1000 ce) by the poet Firdawsi, the Shahnama tells a long history, a mix of fact and magic. Rustam, the greatest hero of the epic, is a King Arthur/Alexander the Great type being who probably lived, but who exists as a force beyond the real, forever doing miraculous deeds with superhuman abilities. For long centuries of Persian kingship, each ruler commissioned his own copy, a way of marking his divine right to hold the throne. This means, therefore, that there are many Shahnamas: the same story but different versions, all elaborate, painstakingly created books with exquisite illustrations. When the patron is a king, no expense is spared, so the Shahnamas of the Persian rulers are rich and magnificent things to see. And if you want to see one, now is a good time. At the moment there is a splendid Shahnama exhibit in New York, another in Washington, and another in Dublin. The Washington exhibit (at the Sackler Gallery until April 17) and the one in Dublin (at the Chester Beatty Library until April 3) appear to be general in nature, with a selection of illustrations covering a broad span of centuries - note the websites at the end of this post. In New York, however, the exhibit (at the Asia Society until May 1), features one particular Shahnama, a 15th-century volume commissioned by Timurid prince Muhammad Juki, who reigned from 1402-1444. It is the first time that this work, recently unbound and conserved, has been exhibited as a whole in the U.S. It is hard to know where to start with these illustrations - other than with the magnifying glass provided at the entry. Each small page is a dazzling universe of color, pattern, infinite skill and design, and each one stopped me in my tracks. And then I moved on to the next and got chills all over again. So, a few favorite pages: Rustam Slays the White Demon - The King is blind, the only cure the blood from a terrifying demon; Rustam takes it the daunting task, and here he is, squatting next to the ugly dead creature, isolated by his personal courage in a dark space surrounded by a cloud of minutely detailed foliage. He draws out the rich red blood with his bare hands while a servant waits quietly and Rustam's horse peeks out to watch. At the top the story is told in graceful Arabic calligraphy as elegant and perfectly formed as the illustration. On another page Rustam, still a child, has taken his grandfather's royal mace and is about to slay a mad Elephant that has been 'wreaking havoc' - he has slipped out of the castle, whose neatly patterned walls rise high up above his head, past a vigilant guard. According to the accompanying text, the guard who tries to stop him will be beheaded as well. Here is an allegory of benign brutality in which sacrifices are made to serve the greater good. One of the last pages on display, thought perhaps to date from a later time than the rest, is a dense battle scene rich with soft jewel-like colors and intricate patterns, that jumps and moves before your eyes. Tiny men and horses scramble at each other amid a crowded scene that includes a dignitary seated on an elephant. Some of the soldiers carry shields painted oh so carefully with dizzying geometric patterns, probably historically correct as they would have distracted and confused the opponent. The horses in these pages are one of the greatest delights. All of them, whether in the thick of a battle, covered in rich trappings of war or ceremony, or merely standing by, show their breeding in the elegant curves of their necks, their delicate heads and their gentle, alert eyes. The Shahnama will always be around, but if you can see these marvelous works of art in person, you will be the richer for it.

http://sites.asiasociety.org/bookofkings/ http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/aroundthemall/2010/10/shahnama-the-persian-book-of-kings-opens-at-the-sackler-gallery/ http://www.cbl.ie/index.aspx

Haunted PopUps in Philadelphia

2011-02-17T12:26:00.001-05:00

Have you ever walked into an art exhibit and thought, I'd like to do something like that? You look closely at the technique and think about the fun it would be to try it at home. I often do that, even in museums - I learn a lot by looking. But the pop-up extravaganzas of Colette Fu are something else. When I saw the fascinating exhibit, Haunted Philadelphia, at the Athenaeum, I could only stand in awe, marveling open-mouthed, at her work. It's a wonderful idea - taking some of the familiar landmarks of Philadelphia, cutting them up, giving them a scary, demented twist, and and reassembling them into large-scale books that pop them out in brilliantly engineered 3D. Fu researched darker episodes in the city's history and worked them into her creations. Her treatment of City Hall includes a swinging noose, recalling the gallows that preceded the 19th century masterpiece (the largest masonry building in the world), and the deconstructed lights of Boathouse Row are meant to call up memories of Native American beliefs in strange spirits along the Schuylkill River. A natural, of course, is Eastern State Penitentiary, now a popular tourist site, but once a dark place of abuse and mistreatment. Pop-up books have been a staple of children's literature, especially in the last 15 years, but the craft goes a long time. 14th century scholars used paper flaps in books of anatomy, and the 19th century saw a great surge in books that entertained with paper flaps, pop-ups, and folds. But paper engineering on this level is always a wonder: Fu gives workshops if you want to try your hand. http://www.colettefu.com/workshops/ Haunted Philadelphia will be at the Athenaeum, 219 S. 6th Street, Center City Philadelphia, until March 18th, 2011, and the gallery will be open for First Friday, March 4th. http://www.philaathenaeum.org/

Art and Google

2011-02-07T20:12:00.000-05:00

You might have notice a small frieze along the bottom of your Google page a few days ago, advertising the newest 'new thing' - the Google Art project. I fiddled with it a little, got the idea that it was something to do with virtual access to art museums, then forgot about it - until this morning when I read Roberta Smith's article in the New York Times: Art in the Age of Google. Roberta Smith is a wonderful art writer so I was interested to hear her opinion - which seems to be 'cautiously optimistic.' The ultra-zoom feature is very intriguing (though not exclusive - some major museums have excellent websites with the capacity for close digital study) and fun to play with. It is kind of cool to get THAT close to Van Gogh's thick juicy brushstrokes, but in general, I'm not sure it's all that helpful if you didn't already know what you were looking at before you zoomed in. I agree with Smith's statement that Google Art is a nice way to examine 'practice' looking at actual art from the comfort of your home - and it's a great entree for teaching and for people who can't drop on in to their local major world-class museum. No digital experience can replace the real thing, but Smith points out some benefits - the lack of jostling in crowded galleries, and her discovery of tiny skinny-dippers all but invisible to the naked eye in Bruegel's Harvesters at the Met in New York. There are only 17 participating museums so far, but the range is interesting, with a contemporary art museum in the Czech Republic, two museums in Russia, the Tate Britain, the Frick, and the Freer Gallery in Washington, along with the Met, the Uffizi, the Rijksmuseum, and the National Gallery in London. I took some time with the Freer site (the Freer is dedicated to Asian art), exploring the virtual tour feature - one trip took me down a hallway to a firmly closed door - and then examining a couple of Mughal book pages. That seemed a good test, as they are small in scale to begin with and are usually examined with the help of a magnifying glass.At first I was afraid that the image of a crowd of men on a 'dictionary page' was hopelessly pixilated at close range but it didn't take long to resolve, and the magnificent intimacy of the lovely detail was in fact, apparent. (my example is not the actual one from the Freer site) The extraordinary Hans Holbein portrait of the merchant Georg Giszes from 1532 was another good test because of the incredible minutiae of the original, as was a delightful still life titled Turkey Pie by Pieter Claesz from the Rijksmuseum. Try zooming in on that one for the fun of getting so close to the crumbling pastry, the juicy raisins, the oysters, the frosted grapes, the salt and pepper spilling out of a roll of paper - and take an extra close look at the knife to see the tiny calligraphy of the date and artist's signature.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/07/arts/design/07google.html?_r=1

Dealing with Cezanne

2011-01-19T12:44:00.000-05:00

London is receding into the distance as life in Philadelphia takes over and my new theme-based Art History course at Drexel University picks up speed. But I can't get the Cezanne show I saw at the Courtauld out of my head - not that I'd want to. I love small concentrated shows like this. Big blockbusters have their place, and I'm all in favor of what they must do for museum budgets, but the experience at the Courtauld was the kind of thing that is much more pleasant and satisfying. *read to the end for good news about where the show can be seen next! Here the focus is on Cezanne's great Card Players series, with some large multi-figure canvases and many related works - sketches and paintings of individual figures. By the end I was not only an even more slavish fan of Cezanne's color and relationship with paint, but on a first name basis with the earthy, homely men who populate the array of paintings in the series. There's Paulin Paulet, with his trademark droopy mustache and crumpled-looking hat; he appears in all of the compositions from the two-figure versions to the largest with 5 figures (owned by the Barnes foundation, which did not loan it for the exhibit.) And le Pere Alexandre, an old gardener who was another favorite model - it's easy to see his appeal for Cezanne. In his workman's blue smock and red neckerchief, with his stolid, resigned expression, he conveys a dignity that is solid and timeless, like that of Cezanne's mountain, St. Victoire. It is thought that each of the models posed separately in Cezanne's studio at the Jas de Buffon, the family estate that figures in many of his landscapes - and that Paulet and Pere Alexandre were paid three francs for their trouble. Like chess pieces in a game of color, light, and form, Cezanne used these key figures to create various arrangements around a simple wooden table, sometimes covered with a cloth and sometimes not, adding figures, changing positions, inserting props and details like clay pipes and wine bottles. Initial studies, like that of Pere Alexandre (Peasant in a Blue Smock) have some of the fresh, sketchy brushwork of his watercolors while the finished compositions have his characteristic buttery layering of intricate color harmonies - the patches of green shading into the complement of violet, his rich beautiful blues set off by a bit of orange. Cezanne had a way with color that gives the eye and even the soul a sense of deep satisfaction. Solid, eternal - the Ancient Egyptians would have understood easily what Cezanne was doing. This card game will never end - like the timeless, endlessly beautiful art of Egyptian tombs, these men will spend forever locked together in their small space, anticipating the next play of fortune while we stand in amazement looking on.

*Great News! The Metropolitan Museum of Art, which co-sponsored the show, is next - Cezanne's Card Players opens February 2 and will be on view until May 5, 20ll.

London and Gauguin

2011-01-08T17:13:00.000-05:00

I've just gotten back from wintry England, as charming and interesting a place as ever, especially as the trip involved visits with many old friends. There is nothing better. The variety and quality of art on view in London was the icing (marzipan, of course - it was everywhere) on the cake. Gauguin was the headliner, a big splashy get-your-tickets-ahead-and-still-stand-in-line exhibit at the Tate Modern. Other delights were the exhaustively fascinating Diaghilev show at the V&A with wonderful drawings and set designs by a raft of artists including Leon Bakst, Jean Cocteau, de Chirico, and Picasso, the overhead installation of Edmund de Waal's minimal white ceramic vessels set into a red ceiling rim (also at the V&A), the surprise of finding one of Rembrandt's most powerful self-portraits deep in the wilds of Hampstead Heath at Kenwood House, and a superb modern drawing show at the British Museum. Quieter and smaller than the Gauguin but just as spectacular was an exquisite setting of Cezanne's Card Players, with sketches and related paintings, at the Courtauld Gallery. The Gauguin show took up most of the 4th floor of the gigantic power plant that is now the Tate modern; fighting crowds through room after room was a test of stamina, but there

were plenty of rewards for hanging in. Arranged by theme rather than chronology, the exhibit presented multiple Gauguins - self-portrait subject, failed stockbroker and family man, native of Brittany, spiritual seeker, etc. Complementing the rooms of paintings, drawings, and sculpture were displays of family photographs and odd bits of this and that - one of my favorite was a pair of Breton 'sabots' - wooden shoes - that Gauguin made for himself with colored motifs as artistic signatures. They were about a size 12 mens, and beautifully carved. These homey touches, with some measure of success, filled in the outlines of an artist who often seems to hover a bit beyond solid understanding. The show presented many masterpieces, some very familiar and some less so. (Many of the best were from American museums.) It was especially gratifying to have a chance to see a good deal of Gauguin's graphic work. A virtuosic printmaker with a special affinity for wood, he made use of a block print technique that meshed perfectly with his explorations into 'primitive' emotions and mythology. One room was devoted to prints from Noa Noa, the best-known and most complete of his books - the mystical feeling he was after was palpable in the small, dimly lit gallery. Color, of course, is one of Gauguin's signatures, serving his vision (now, thanks to him, ours too) of tropical landscapes and their equally luscious inhabitants. One painting after another repaid one's patience through the many rooms with rich, gorgeous shades of pinks, yellows, oranges, honey browns, deep violet blues. When he left Europe to seek out his tropical paradise in Tahiti he was disappointed to find that 'civilization' had gotten there before him and had wiped out much of what he believed he could find. Still, despite banal struggles with taxes, disease, and poverty, his powers of invention created what he sought and what he left for us to savor; a timeless place of deep mystery, lush sensuality, and infinite dreams. Dreams, of course, as he showed time and again, can be dark and disturbing; his color is enticing but even more, the mysteries of Gauguin's visions keep beckoning, asking us to look again and think further about what may or may not be there.

Angels for You - Happy Holidays!

2010-12-21T11:23:00.002-05:00

Angels seem a little more real, a little closer to us at this time of year. And don't we need a few more angels in this tattered world, guarding us and keeping the peace? Some of you have asked about the origin of the angel on my Peace Card so I thought I'd share that one and a few other favorites as a way to spread wishes for peace and good feelings.
Angels are not only a Christian thing, as many believe. The idea goes way back, about 5500 years, to the early peoples of the Near East who first organized religion into rituals, rites, and identifiable deities. As in most religion, they placed their gods and goddesses in the heavens, and with irrefutable logic identified birds as messengers - winged go-betweens at home in both the earthly realm of humans and the divine realm of the gods. I think you'll agree that it's not a far distance from there to the fabulous winged panoply of gorgeous creatures flying around in the clouds, carrying harps and singing their hearts out. There are angels in the Jewish and Islamic tradition as well as the Christian, though thanks to the Christian emphasis on images, most of the angels we know and love come from Christian art. And angels are not only sweetness and light, either - the Archangel Michael carries a big sword and has a temper - he's the one who drove Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden. In this painting by Perugino, however, his sweet soft face and pretty polished armor belies the tough reputation. His fellow archangel Gabriel, by contrast, is the 'Good News' angel - here he is in a detail from Simone Martini's wonderful annunciation bringing surprising tidings to a young woman named Mary. Fra Angelico (the inspiration for my card) is the go-to guy for angels - no one does them better. All my best wishes for a happy and peaceful holiday season - may you have an angel always at your side.

The Past comes close to Home

2010-12-11T10:47:00.003-05:00

Preparing my own work for a couple of shows has kept me busy lately - good work, good shows, but it's kept me from writing here. To catch up, I'll start with the past. Ruins of late great civilizations are everywhere. Romantic artists and poets loved ruined abbeys, dismantled temples of Ancient Rome, columns and half walls sticking up through the sand or vines for evocative soul-stirring associations with shunted human ambition and poignant death. Shakespeare's 73rd sonnet calls to mind the same tug of romance and futility with an architectural metaphor.
That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang

But all these ruins are elsewhere, right? Europe, Rome, Sicily, Africa, Central and South America: the closest we here in the US come is the Southwest, with the spectacular cliff houses of the Anasazi? Today, though, thanks to Yahoo and several intrepid photographers with an eye for unusual beauty, the US enters the Pantheon of great ruins. Here, via the link below, is a look at ruins all too close to home. These poignant photos tell of an America that we can now only know from books and our grandparents' stories, of thriving industrial cities in the heartland, churning out vast quantities of widgets or whatever, building strong prosperous communities on an infrastructure of faith and thriving capitalism. It is a bit of a shock to see so clearly the evidence of a time and way of life that will never come again, but it is also a prompt to look ahead and not backwards for technologies and human achievement. Regretting the past is a dead end, if a searingly picturesque one. Click on this link to see the video - you don't want to miss this. Thanks to these photographers for seeing and sharing. They also have a Flickr page of still photos.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_weekend/20101210/ts_yblog_weekend/lost-treasures-of-the-city

High level Handwork

2010-11-19T15:19:00.000-05:00

The PMA Craft Show comes and goes much too fast. This spectacular show, the first and one of the best of the major high-level Craft shows, took place in Philadelphia for four days over the past weekend. I was there for two, but two days was barely enough time to see it, let alone pay close attention to all the artists and their work. So I’ll share some of my favorites.

This was a great year for jewelry. Nature is a constant inspiration for artists, but this year’s crop seemed particularly focused on natural forms, shapes, and materials. The very first booth I stopped at was that of Roberta and David Williamson, longtime veterans of the PMA show, who make the most wonderful combinations of metals and crystal in which they often trap images like specimens. If you look closely at the photo you can see that David and Roberta, who met in art school and have worked together successfully ever since, are wearing examples of their creations. I was really intrigued by some of the smaller work in their cases, with antique prints and little bug drawings hanging from chains and worked into pins and rings. Christy Klug, from Austin, TX, gets one of my biggest gold stars. I really love her work, in no small part because she manages to use her jewelry as a drawing medium. In the photo you can see an egg with her calligraphic lines; next to it is an exquisite enamel pendant with a parallel form and surface – a presentation as thoughtful and striking as the work itself. One of the most unusual materials was the antler horn used by Eric Silva for brooches and pendants. He describes cutting and shaping the solid antler to give it flared edges and hollows, then polishing to bring out a beautiful patina. His pieces speak of the eternity in nature yet have fresh, contemporary style.

Of the ceramic artists in the show, I especially admired the work two of the newer exhibitors, Judit Varga from Maryland, and Nathan Falter from Missouri. Judit is one of those rare potters who appreciates the pinch pot, a relatively unsophisticated form for beginners (when I taught ceramics that was chapter one,) but in her hands a marvel of complex possibility. Her small pod shapes grow into honeycombs of dark mystery, an effect furthered by a dark heavy clay with natural gravitas. Nathan Falter’s work, by contrast, quotes man-made forms – oil cans and funnels - tweaked by the earthy solidity of his darks and lights with a witty sprinkle of stenciled numbers and letters.

A good number of wood artists were represented, from furniture makers to turners. Janel Jacobson, from Minnesota, was kind enough to bring her tools, to let us see what she uses to make her magic – true magic – tiny, impossibly beautiful forms that recall the wit and careful artistry of Japanese netsuke. I could hardly tear myself away from Philip Weber’s work. Philip, from Effort, PA, makes exquisite boxes of wood – boxes that are the jewels rather than what might go inside. His oval box made of holly and ebony is a chess game of dark and light with inlays of tiny sticks of wood and metal, made so much patience and minute craftsmanship that the mind can hardly grasp what it took to bring it to reality.

There were also plenty of fiber and textile artists, many of them showing wearable art - dresses, hats, scarves. David Fraser was one of the few hard at work in the midst of the show, working on his waxed linen weaving. His creations take many forms, including vases and tubular shapes, all of which have a vibrant, tactile energy. One of my brightest gold stars for the show goes to Renee Harris, a storyteller with color and thread. Rich, elaborate, elegant, whimsical, each of her wall pieces is a festival displaying a narrative that goes straight to the heart. I talked to Renee for quite a while – enjoying her conversation as much as her work – as she explained the process of masterful felting and embroidery, and spoke of her concerns for fish, birds, and the other marvels of nature that we humans treat so carelessly. It’s all there, in every stitch and surface, and the case is so beautifully made.

These artists all have websites – you can easily find them with a search. Some of them will be at the Smithsonian Craft Show in Washington in April. Go if you can, and if you do, tell them you know about them from ArtSmartTalk!

Between and Beyond the Covers

2010-11-09T11:07:00.001-05:00

You may be one of those who think that ‘The Book’ is in decline and will soon disappear from common currency, like the typewriter eraser or the dial phone. With E-readers available to deliver information, what’s the point of books? The same question, of course, was asked in the mid 1800’s, but then it was art that was in atrophy and about to disappear. Who needs painting or sculpture when you have photography? But art didn’t go anywhere, did it? Well, yes, it did, but it didn’t go AWAY. In fact it became more ART. With photography handling the mundane tasks like portraiture and recording historical events, art was free to expand beyond traditional boundaries. You know how that story goes.

Now it’s the book’s turn. Last weekend I went to the NY Art Book Fair at P.S.1, the contemporary arm of the Museum of Modern Art, and I can assure you that the book is far from over. This is not brand-new news for artist book aficionados – the first NY Art Book Fair, which is sponsored by Printed Matter, was held in 2006. And some artists have been making books for a long time, but the field is now exploding. P. S. 1 is a big space, but it was filled top-to-bottom with books, paper publications, and zines, with the artists and publishers who make them, and with a galloping crowd of fans hungry to see what’s new and exciting. So here are a few favorites: The Women’s Studio Workshop (Rosendale, N.Y.) - Sandy and Chris (in the photo) presided over a display of bright, crisply made editions, all impressive in the craftsmanship of the objects and the depth of ideas. The Thing (San Francisco) cleverly offers a periodical in the form of an object designed by an artist – one, by Jonathan Lethem, is a pair of glasses with the text written on the inside of the frame – another was a shoe with a lace bound into a blank book. Art books are thriving in Europe - a featured group from The Netherlands was there in force, along with other international presenters. The Bongoût Gallery (Berlin) and Lubok Verlag (Leipzig) had rich, exciting work on display Bongoût stood out for layered, complex, colorful imagery in large format, while Lubok showed work with masterful printmaking techniques, like the book of Faces in the photo. The beautiful range of thoughtful, well-made books from RedFoxPress, an Irish-Korean collaboration, exemplified the spirit of this art form. I liked the work of Napa Books (Finland) so much that I purchased an exquisite little flip book by one of the principals, Jenni Rope, and was interested to find out that they hold a yearly flip-book competition, with past winners from Japanese and far-flung places. Canadian book artists were also well represented, with a full room of artists and publishers, spilling over with great ideas and beautiful books of all kinds. This is a very vibrant, exciting world where artists are finding great ways to turn a familiar old technology into a leading contemporary art form.

More than skin deep

2010-11-03T12:29:00.000-04:00

With some good, but mostly terrifying, news after the election, I think Tattoo art is the only appropriate subject for a post. I mention my lovely old - really old - Philadelphia neighborhood sometimes, where there are lovely brick townhouses, big shady trees, the warm light of old-fashioned streetlamps, horse-drawn carriages, etc - but I'm also close to a very different world. Just down the block, on the other side of South Street, is the vibrant, heady world of Tattoo art. Just one block - but if you want a world-class tattoo this is where you need to be. The other day as I passed one of the best shops, I saw a tattoo artist making real street art - painting the sidewalk with a bright flashy design that I think is also available for your arm or chest - or wherever. A big swooping eagle against a clear blue, with hot reds and yellows - irresistable - and masterfully done! And the artist himself was a work of art - I don't want to think about what it took to have a head of flowers like that, but it made quite a visual statement!

Buy some ART - why not?

2010-10-22T17:38:00.000-04:00

It's a whole lot easier to buy original art than it used to be. I love galleries (most of them) but I REALLY love the fact that they now are one option for artists rather than the only game in town. And because artists are finding ways to jump the middleman and bring their work directly to you, you have more options too. I've just started putting up my art on Etsy, the online wonderland of creativity where you can wander from shop to shop, browsing handmade art and objects, most at amazingly reasonable prices. In my shop, Gregorgrace (www.etsy.com/shop/gregorgrace) you can find cards and prints with my drawings, and my handmade books. Take a look - I've just put up some new designs for the holidays! It's a real pleasure to be part of the Etsy community - I admire the ingenuity of everybody involved. Plan to spend some time - you'll find a lot to love! Leave me a comment after you visit Etsy.com telling me about favorite things you found! Another, even more direct way to encounter art and artists is to go to their natural habitat - their studios. Open Studios have been around in some places for a long time (there's a great tradition of Open Studios in Berkeley, CA where I used to live, where the idea started more than 25 years ago.) Some people are timid about going into an unknown artist's studio - what will I say? Do I have to buy something? Will they look at me funny if I don't understand their art? - but once they've tried it they usually keep coming back year after year. Artists who open their studios are looking to be generous - they want you to ask questions, and let them tell you about their art. During a recent Open Studio weekend in Philadelphia I went to the studio of Dolores Poacelli, whose work I wrote about here when she exhibited at AXD Gallery. It was fun to climb the steep creaky stairs in the old out-of-the-way building where she - and about a dozen other artists - have studios. Her space was neat, tidy, and full of bright color and interesting work - well worth the trip. I found a whole other side of her work that I hadn't seen in the gallery show - and bought a tiny handmade collage for $6. How generous - but fairly typical - of a respected, serious - and very good - artist like Dolores to have a range of work available to buy. She had medium range pieces - gorgeous quality prints of some of her paintings for $50, as well as big canvases and assemblages that were naturally a good deal more. I put Dolores's piece in my own studio and delight in it every time I see it. Art is like that - it gives back to you all the work you put into it, whether you made it or bought it. Have some fun - buy some art!

Big Moving Art

2010-10-11T13:49:00.000-04:00

Philadelphia has got to be the mural capital of the world. Under Jane Golden and the Mural Arts Program, beginning in 1984, more than 3000 murals have been painted all over the city - and they're not stopping anytime soon! On Saturday I went to a big "paint-in" to see the next major mural taking shape - lively, moving, enormous shape. The mural is called HowPhillyMoves and the subject is dance - 50, 000 square feet of dance! After June 2011 this mural could well be your first sight of the city, because it's destined to cover the parking structure for the airport, which fronts onto busy I-95. Instead of that boring modern concrete nothingness of parking structures, you'll see great swaths of leaping, moving, color, life, speed, and excitement. Last week Mural Arts put out a call for help in the newspapers and online, and when I walked into a third floor space in an indoor shopping mall Saturday afternoon it seemed like all of Philadelphia had rallied to the cause. What a sight! Kids of all ages, moms with babies in papoose packs, old folks, young folks, everybody had a brush and paints and an apron, and the mural was growing like mad with every passing minute. Judy Hellman, the director of Art Education for Mural Arts pointed out a young woman with her sleeves rolled up, painting her share - and then pointed her out again - in the cartoon for the mural on the wall! She was - and is - one of the dancers to be immortalized in this creation - look for her splash of red in the panel I show here! Murals, in the tradition of ancient peoples, and from the revival of that tradition by Diego Rivera in Mexico in the 1930's, are such a forceful expression of a community - this is a great testament to a community not only in living color, but in BIG action!

A Little Kitsch now and then...

2010-10-01T12:18:00.000-04:00

Every now and then we all need a break from high-minded culture, and I'm getting it in the form of colorful, seasonal kitsch. Many of the 18th century townhouses in my city neighborhood were built with recessed windows, likely intended to display shop wares, but now the perfect setting for showing off the family collection of holiday-related paraphernalia. Doors, stoops, gates - all are fair game. With the leaves turning, the skies gray, and rain streaking the brick houses and sidewalks, the jolt of kitschy color adds a fun note to an ordinary stroll through the streets. Halloween is a prime inspiration, but it's just the opening act - Christmas, the high point of kitsch season, will be hot on its heels.

Oh Boy! A 'new' Bruegel

2010-09-24T09:47:00.000-04:00

The news out of Madrid today is that there is officially a 'new' painting by Pieter Bruegel the elder ('the elder' is important because his sons, also painters, were far lesser talents.) Bruegel (aka The Elder) is one of my favorite painters, so this is exciting. And from what I've seen from news reports, this is a classic - full of wit and spirit, with a great seething crowd of people engaged in vigorous activity that smacks of all-too-human frailty, in this case drunkeness on the event of a festival celebrating St. Martin. (he's the wealthy man turned saint who shared his cloak with a beggar, in case you're wondering.) One of the reports I read called Bruegel a painter of 'peaceful winter scenes' but they're confusing him with other Flemish painters - Bruegel in his time was nicknamed 'Peasant Bruegel' because he painted peasants, a subject of no worth to the establishment at the time, but he is in fact a sly and at times subversive painter of great sophistication. Working as he did in the 1500's in the Netherlands, he felt the full impact of the bloody century that resulted from Martin Luther's actions against "The Church" - the Reformation. His compelling painting, The Triumph of Death, while believable as an allegory of religious belief, is considered a fairly accurate picture of the devastation left in the wake of Spanish Catholic actions against the rebels in Northern Europe, actions that led to the independence of the brave little country we now know as Holland. Other Bruegel pictures show, yes peasants, but show them as representatives of human actions, unfettered by the restraints of more highly civilized society - for example his work, Netherlandish Proverbs, is a glossary of many familiar sayings (Don't Count your Chickens before they Hatch, Don't cry over Spilt Milk, etc) acted out by a cast of characters with charm and colorful squalor. There are only about 40 known Bruegels - this affirmation of a 'new' one is big news indeed.

'My' Paris - arts grands et intimes

2010-09-17T10:54:00.000-04:00

I've just gotten back from Paris, where I spent much of my time planning for my Paris Arts Tours which begin next Spring. Take a look at http://parisarts.wordpress.com/paris-arts-small-group-tours-with-a-twist/. I'm still adding specifics, but if you come, you can count on a very special arts-focused week with good food, charming people, and interesting off-the-beaten-track visits and experiences. I'm always intrigued with the the range of art and beauty in this most beautiful of cities. The museums of Paris are a wonderful treasure, but they are only one aspect. Art spills out everywhere - it's impossible to escape! Some of it is grand and imposing, the impressive residue of France's heroic past, but much of the pleasure of the city comes from the 'arts intimes,' everyday delights styled by an artisanal hertiage essential to the story of Paris. Shop windows are often tiny museums; cakes at Gerard Mulot near Saint Germain, a florist on a side street, a fashionable jeweler on the Ile St. Louis - each presents his/her wares with the touch of a practiced artist. In parks, even the little pocket parks in every neighborhood, some bit of sculpture or ancient bit of architecture peeps out of the greenery, with poignant, casual effect. On my ParisArts site, above, look for posts on this subject - even breakfast qualifies!

Rome - the Light and Dark of it

2010-09-07T16:44:00.005-04:00

If you want to understand color, go to the South of France; that certainly worked for Van Gogh and Cezanne. But if it's light and dark you want to understand, head for Rome. Rome, where I spent the last week, is an intense study of the subject. Light and dark here are sensual, physical experiences with moral overtones. One minute the sun is beating down, filling body and soul with hot heavenly radiance that bounces off the orange/gold walls and pours into you until you are sated, saturated with light. Then you step into the shade and a curtain drops, plunging you into black so rich, so velvety, so complete that your balance evaporates. You wobble unsteadily for a moment, hoping you don't pitch forward onto the cobblestones, while your eyes do might battle with the forces of darkness, struggling to adjust. Surely the bombardment of Catholicism in Rome is feeding my moral metaphors, but it is the give and take of light and dark in the extreme that explains why the Ancient Romans were masters of sculpture, especially bas-relief. Trajan's Column - amazing to see it just standing there minding it's own business after 2000 years while buses and taxis whiz by - is a great illustration. In the shade this masterpiece of 2nd century propaganda (designed by the great Apollodorus of Damascus) is a kind of visual mush, but in the bright sun the rugged, visceral details of Rome's victory over the Dacians spring to life. Similarly, in the Roman Forum The Arch of Titus, marking the victory in Jerusalem with the resulting destruction of Solomon's Temple, shows the triumphant parade and the display of spoils - here also the sun is equal partner to the sculptor, bringing every realistic detail into stunning relief. Busts of Emperors, richly carved sarcophagi, even architecture - in every important Roman art form the bright light of the sun is understood and assumed. The Romans didn't color their sculptures like the ancient Greeks - perhaps in part because they were more practical-minded, they counted on the ever-present, reliable sun to paint their work with the broad brush of dramatic eloquence.

Stitching Stories - Now and Then

2010-08-26T15:03:00.002-04:00

Among the many splendors of the Philadelphia Museum of Art is the extraordinary Asian collection, which includes not only the usual treasures in ceramic and on paper but entire rooms and buildings - a Chinese hall, a Japanese tea house complex, and an enormous Hindu temple construction. These days it's perhaps best not to look too closely into how they got there, but these wonders makes for a very moving museum experience. On the way to investigate them with a visiting Chinese friend last weekend, I detoured into a quiet gallery off to one side and entered a world of Bengal art, including some of the most charming embroidered art I've ever seen. I'm always attracted to visual narratives, no matter the media, and these certainly fit into that category. My pictures are a bit fuzzy, but I hope you at least get an idea of the lovely details of subject and technique. These quilts which were often made out of worn garments, are called Kanthas. The two examples I saw were made in the 19th century, apparently for home use, but they tell grand stories of Hindu culture and belief. Processional chariots, called rathas, carry a linga, the phallic symbol representing Shiva, letting us know that it is a religious procession, and in a second quilt Radha holds hands with her divine love, Krishna. Further searching helps set the quilts in their historical moment, for you can find figures dressed in contemporary clothing, including one in a military costume. Such delicate, laborious work serves a documentary as well as artistic and utilitarian purpose; these quilts brought to mind the Bayeux Tapestry (a misnomer - it is embroidered, not woven) created in the 11th century to commemorate William's conquest of England (note the nice narrative detail at the bottom of the soldier stealing the shirt from the dead enemy.) I then went on to wonder about contemporary embroidery art. A quick search and I had at least one very good answer - Eleanor Hannan is a wonderful artist who lives in Vancouver and does amazing painterly work in this medium. Her colors and way of handling thread and stitching range easily and with mastery across the areas of tradition, technique, and innovation. Her website is well worth a look http://www.eleanorhannan.com.

A damp Druidic day at Storm King

2010-08-17T13:16:00.000-04:00

Saturday in NW Connecticut was one of those perfect days - friends, art, music, good food - and a blissfully perfect, sunny but cooler day after all the heat. But on Sunday when we headed south towards home the skies were damp and cloudy, and we almost scuttled our plans to stop at Storm King, the fabled sculpture park on 500 acres just south of Newburgh, NY. Persevering through the rain and some museum quality potholes along the route was, however, one of our better decisions. Storm King at any time and in any weather is worth the trip, but on this gray moist day it took on mystical, Druidic associations that multiplied the many pleasures of the place. After all, Stonehenge itself is a monumental man-made structure centered in a vast landscape gently shaped by human intelligence, swirling out of a dampened mist to send a shiver of significance up your spine. The march of towering Mark di Suvero sculptures across a broad field and onto the crown of a rise will surely speak to future archeologists of some spiritual rite and purpose, even more so by the geometry of form and the bright orange steel against the more subtle shades of nature. We set off, passing great globes of rock among the cedars, followed by smaller concrete pieces that seemed a bit naked out in the woods, then crunched our way up a path onto Museum Hill where we could see sculptures above and below - rods of steel swaying in a valley, bright red metal shapes topping a hill. On the way down we found a meandering cage of bamboo climbing a ridge and spied below us an artist at work on a new construction, then rose again to come face to face with the spiky black notes of Chakaia Booker's parentheses around a distant Calder, and the carefully detailed monumental wooden works of Ursula von Rydingsvard. Down the road, past the many di Suveros, we spotted Andy Goldsworthy's wall (the first - there are now two), snaking out of the stream and into the woods, adding gravitas and humor in some kind of balance, with Roy Lichtenstein's Mermaid Boat nearby to inject an unexpected note of Pop Art zing into the soulful peace and quiet. One of the newest pieces is Maya Lin's Wave Field, created of earth itself - it seems to undulates as you watch, as though humming a soft tune of eternal presence. Here and there on this damp day an umbrella bobbed and swayed, recalling Christo's Umbrella Project of 1991, making for a nice contemporary art move out of the physical present into the mind (he is not represented at Storm King, to my knowledge.) Trekking back to the parking lot we passed a great black Calder highlighted against a field of high grass, thrilling in the effect of scale as it stood solidly dwarfing a couple beneath its arch, in something of a counterpoint to the ambitious scale of human efforts on display. No matter how large and ambitious, they pay a debt of humility to the grandeur of their setting.

Thinking of Blue: Matisse at MOMA

2010-08-05T19:26:00.000-04:00

Thinking of the Matisse show at MOMA - Matisse: Radical Invention 1913-1917 - fills my head with the color blue. There are plenty of artists known for blue - Vermeer and Yves Klein, to name a couple - but there is something about Matisse's blues that makes your mouth water in a different way. Seductive, charming, often with a tinge of rosy undertone that somehow brings a little bit of peace to the soul - Matisse makes this most primary of colors speak with an elegant, eloquent voice. The color, rich and satisfying on its own merits, is also part of the story the show is telling. The dates refer to the years between the time Matisse arrives back in Paris after his momentous trip to Morocco and when he leaves for Nice, where he enters one of his most defining periods. In between is World War I, and the earthshaking consequences of the development of Cubism by his rival Picasso (and others) - two mighty forces that Matisse must contend with as he lands back in France. The grim conditions imposed by war make themselves felt; small intimate drawings of spouses of artists off in the war, created by Matisse to be sold to help refugees in France, are a sober reminder of real lives disrupted, and the skeletal shapes of Notre Dame's towers in a popular painting in MOMA's permanent collection become apocalyptic in the context of 1914 Europe. During these years Cubism challenged Matisse with its mix of intellectualized, minimalized, monochromatic rules - his striving for solutions seems obvious once explained, though I hadn't thought about it before. His choice of monochrome, in contrast to the greys and browns of Picasso and Braque, is blue, a color that allows him to keep the element of sensuality that is his trademark, while also allowing him to focus in new ways. Again, a painting from MOMA's collection is the best example: The Blue Window (1913) can in fact be seen as a Cubist-inspired work, with evident geometry in objects and a palette that, while not that of a monochrome purist, is restrained to a few yellows and reds swimming in a gorgeous sea of blue. This is a satisfying show, designed to teach, to please, and to make you think.

Deep Woods, Clean Lakes

2010-07-26T09:35:00.001-04:00

In a world of global warming and devastating oil disasters, it's easy to forget that nature can still exist in a pristine spiritual state, that there are places where humans, animals, birds, trees, and water can get along with no more impact on each other than absolutely necessary. I was fortunate to spend a few days last week at a lake camp deep in the Adirondacks and can thus testify that this is, in fact, the case. This camp, deep in the Keene Valley area, is one of those relics of an amazing era, when massive tracts of these lands could - and were - bought by forward-looking, intrepid individuals for 50 cents an acre in order to save them from the logging industry. (Of the original tract, much now belongs to NY State as a wilderness preserve.) They put up sturdy, rustic cabins, rowed in with goods and families, and stayed for the long summers, with few comforts but with plenty of peace, quiet, and almost unbearable beauty all around them. The friends with whom we stayed are the current generation of one of the original families, which included an artist who was at one time well-known as an American Modernist. His name is Howard Weston, and while his story includes successful gallery shows in Manhattan, years in a small village in the French Pyrenees, and a commitment to humanitarian issues during WWII, his heart was always in the Adirondacks. His work, as shown in these samples, glows with the rich depth of color and emotion that he saw and felt in this amazing world. My photos are a paler connection to the place that rooted so deeply into his soul.

Thingish Things - Winnie the Pooh

2010-07-14T23:14:00.000-04:00

I taught a class in the History of Children's Literature this afternoon and, after 3 hours of John Locke and his mighty influence, have Winnie the Pooh on the brain. Winnie the Pooh, by A. A. Milne, was first published in 1926, long after John Locke 'invented' the idea of delight as a good way to get children to learn what they needed to know, but it is a very Lockean book, full of objects and experiences and reflections on the important things in life. As you surely know, Christopher (after Columbus) Robin (after Crusoe) goes exploring in the "Hundred Acre Wood" with the help of his trusty band - Winnie the Pooh, Piglet, Tigger, Roo, and several other creatures, all charming in his or her own way. Don't let the plasticized, commercialized, trivialized Disney gloss stand in the way of getting to know the real thing, if you don't already. E. H. Shepherd's illustrations are full of spirit, sketchy but firmly drawn; they fit Milne's text to perfection, as if they sprang forth together fully formed. Here are some samples, along with a few quotes from one of children's literature's most endearing masterpieces.

"Well," said Pooh, "what I like best -- " and then he had to stop and think. Because although Eating Honey was a very good thing to do, there was a moment just before you began to eat it which was better than when you were, but he didn't know what it was called.

Promise me you'll never forget me because if I thought you would I'd never leave.

Just because an animal is large, it doesn't mean he doesn't want kindness; however big Tigger seems to be, remember that he wants as much kindness as Roo.

You can't stay in your corner of the Forest waiting for others to come to you. You have to go to them sometimes.

Hot times, cool Art

2010-07-08T10:51:00.000-04:00

It's hard to think in this heat, but my thoughts are of art that can provide a little cool. American art, specifically, rather than beach scenes by Monet or breezy views of the Mediterranean by Matisse. Same time period, different landscapes. A 'local' favorite is Maurice Prendergast, a sort of American Post-Impressionist, who was also a member of The Eight, a group based in New York. Maurice, with his brother Charles, a lesser artist, lived in Boston, and many of his paintings are of late 19th century bathers in blousy beachwear, grouped on New England beaches under colorful parasols. There's a lovely spottiness to his work, especially his watercolors, that pleases by a sense of effortless design, as well as the atmosphere of bright sun and cool shade. Or how about Winslow Homer's gorgeous
watercolors of blue Caribbean waters, with soft sandy beaches and breezes that blow, warm and gentle, right out of the frame into your over-heated face? If you'd rather cool off by comparison, there's Edward Hopper's painting of a young woman in the heat of an East Coast summer. No air-conditioning in her upper floor apartment, her body and her bed stripped down to almost nothing, she sits facing stoically into bright New York City sunshine. If you've ever been there in mid-summer, you don't have to guess at the humidity. And then, Thomas Eakins's terse portrait of a rower on the Schuylkill here in Philadelphia - at last there's water, but the damp red handkerchief and the grimace on his face speak not only of exertion but a relentless heat that, right now, right here, is dragging everybody down. And finally, not to leave out the West Coast and a lighter, later aesthetic, Wayne Thiebaud's Ice Cream cones - no heat wave would be complete without them.

BIG BAMBU on the Met Roof

2010-06-21T09:47:00.001-04:00

The roof of the Metropolitan Museum is a magical place, with or without the bamboo forest that has lately sprung up there. Is springing, continues to spring, rather, because the BIG BAMBU project, by brothers Doug and Mike Starn, is an installation that won't be finished until it's, well... finished (on October 31.) I got to the Met last week just before the museum opened, planning to be first in line for tickets to take the free walking tour up and around the forest on a bamboo plank trail that is being laid higher and higher as the months go by. I was already in a magical state of mind, having walked across Central Park, through the Rambles and the woodland areas where you feel like you're somewhere in the backwoods of Kentucky rather than under the shadow of a zillion tall buildings, so I'd almost forgotten that in New York you are never, by law, first in line for anything. I took my place on the steps behind tourists clutching City Passes and listened to a multitude of languages while I waited. Not first, but early; the line for the tour inside the museum was only a few people long. But there are rules for this tour and I'd worn the wrong shoes - no open toes. I talked them into giving me a ticket and swore I'd go back home and change, but after a look at the threatening sky, I figured it would rain before I could manage that, so I went straight to the roof to see what I could see. There was almost no one there yet - you know you're early when the snack bar isn't even open! It is truly a forest - a step or two off the elevator and you're in a cocoon-like mesh of bamboo. The effect is both unsettling and soothing - the bamboo brings to mind Chinese painting, giant pandas in Asian lands - it's out of place not only in the heart of a major city but in American consciousness (though the bamboo used for the project is American grown.) It is exotic, but as you walk between, among, and through the stalks they provide a slightly swaying vertical reassurance, as if you are in a secure place where dangerous open spaces can be kept at bay. Staring straight up through the mesh to the sky far above is a perspective that seems a natural experience similar to being in an actual forest, but also places you in some kind of abstract drawing, with seemingly random criss-crossings that you know were carefully planned by the artists. I was interested to see that the bamboo hangs loose - if any individual stalk rests on the floor it is by chance. The stalks are tied together with various colors and weights of climber cords which are wound tight enough to convince you that the structure will hold, but limp hanging ends are everywhere, adding color and a bit of careless aesthetic. Because the exhibit is in process every day of it's existence, the work is also on display. I watched a small wiry man hard at work; for a while he had his radio on, blaring an incongorous ordinary worksite noise into the magic atmosphere. Behind a wall a man with a saw was readying the next set of bamboo stalks. There's an area left open on the roof terrace so you can sit and contemplate the tightly woven but lacy structure as it rises over the man-made wilderness of populous Manhattan. I'll go back for the tour sometime before the exhibit ends; I look forward to the climb into the clouds.

Sunday in the Park with Drawings

2010-06-14T11:28:00.000-04:00

Theater and art have always been particularly close friends. Sets and costumes can be art history lessons with colors and images straight out of recognizable paintings or with overt references to a specific artist. Some theater is more blatant and more or less successful about it than others - the current Broadway hit 'Red,' about the work of Mark Rothko won big at the Tonys last night. In 1984, however, Stephen Sondheim set the bar for some time to come with his "Sunday in the Park with George" about the life and work of Georges Seurat. The Arden Theater Company in Philadelphia has a production on right now. I saw the original (in previews!) so have an almost proprietary attachment to Sunday in the Park with George and am a tough critic, but I came out very happy. It's a great show, with an excellent cast, especially Jeffrey Coon who plays George. He not only looks like Seurat, but is matched beautifully to the immense challenges of the words and music. His rendition of 'The Day Off' - the Dog Song - is worth the price of admission alone. There are all kinds of theater and musical pleasures here, but I want to mention the set, which makes a point of Seurat's drawings, as the route to the finished masterpiece painting. Seurat's drawings, done with crayon on textured paper in a close approximation of his pointillist painting technique, have a mysterious quality that makes them unique - they're as ethereal as they are strong and powerful. In the Arden production a huge frame dominates the stage as a backdrop for the action, and for much of the first act it's filled with (pretty good) versions of Seurat's sublime graphite drawings. A recent exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art showcased his drawings, many of them sketches for the figures that turn up in the painting - it was fun to see 'them' here, and see the character of George constantly making them as part of the action. In a talkback with the actors after the play Jeffrey Coon talked about how he'd taken a drawing class as part of his preparation for the show, and shared the sketches he'd done on stage that night by flipping through the sketchbook he carries. I think he should stick to acting, but it was great to see how fully he'd entered into the world of this short-lived, fascinating artist.

The Whitney Biennial

2010-06-02T12:14:00.000-04:00

10:47 pm Friday May 28
There are four of us, fresh from a great night of ballet at Lincoln Center. Instead of a late night drink we bustle into a cab and hurry across town to the Whitney Museum. One of us, an urbane, cultured fellow who has lived in New York City for about 35 years, says "I've never been here before."

Looking around at the mismatched throng of ages and types, I'm sure he isn't the only one. I can't remember the last time I saw so many people at the Whitney. There's a party buzz that makes the crowded lobby feel like somewhere else, someplace more urgent and immediate than a major art museum. The reason is the late night hours, part of artist Michael Asher's Biennial project of keeping the Whitney open for 72 hours straight (downsized from his proposal to have it open 24 hours a day for a week.) The 'what you wish' entry doesn't hurt either: I pull out a generous twenty and spring for our group. We have about one hour left to see the Biennial before the Whitney returns to normal.

The first exhibit we experience (contemporary art is not seen, but experienced) is a very loud installation on the first floor, with the artist Ari Marcopoulous as live DJ, surrounded by amps, speakers, and cables. I don't get the point, if there is one, and I'm glad to escape the noise by getting into the elevator and heading up. But where? Plain lists of names for each floor are a hint I don't recognize about the organization (or lack of it) for the entire exhibition. We get off at the fourth floor and start wandering. Wandering is obviously what you're meant to do - stumbling around walls, poking into little rooms, dodging dividers of various kinds. One room has a collection of flower paintings by Charles Ray. They're nice enough - colorful, linear, rhythmic - but seem little distinguished from greeting card quality flowers. We come across a clutch of viewers standing around a big old white car, riveted by a newsreel of sad American moments projected onto the windshield. Lorraine O'Grady's sepia-toned diptychs of Charles Baudelaire and Michael Jackson take up a wall, adding to the elegiac feel of the gallery. Together they represent what must be one of the exhibit themes, a fascination, more than a little morbid, with fallen idols and wasted dreams. The impulse feels maudlin, closer to the 70's than 2010.

Down one level we're met by Thomas Houseago's large clunky sculpture of a creature sitting on its haunches. Its half-human nature is emphasized by its half-finished state - part sloppy plaster, part sloppy drawing - mostly white. There is an uneasy implied judgment there, but I'm not sure it was the artist's intent. The explanation has more to do with the materials and a reference to the riddle of the Sphinx. There's plenty of video and photography, none of which stands out for quality or significance. A yoga-type class puts itself through its paces, and a male dancer arranges and rearranges his body.

Continuing down through the final floors we see a variety of media and even a few ideas, which by this time I've come to think are rare commodities in this Biennial. Out of the entire show, the large crumpled ink drawing of a claustrophobic interior with a woman mourning a dead husband, by Dawn Clements, speaks most sincerely of sustained commitment to thoughtful intention and execution. It's a tour de force of drawing, with a stubborn traditional pride in the hand on the page, yet thoroughly contemporary in presentation with its wrinkled, insouciant mismatched edges. It was a relief to come across it in the midst of the lightweight confusion of this Biennial.

Confusion, in fact, seems the best way to sum it all up. Perhaps the idea was to match our confused cultural moment of lost hopes, lost bank accounts, lost homes, and uncertain futures. The scattered notes of conservative tradition - Charles Ray's flowers, Maureen Gallace's tame little landscapes - may have been meant to be reassuring, but are merely discordant. The art here seems to have lost its way, as did the direction of the Whitney for this Biennial.

The ending dates for the Whitney Biennial, in keeping with the theme of confusion, are confusing. Two of the floors closed May 30. The other three close on successive dates through the month of June.