Gorky in Philadelphia

A major Arshile Gorky retrospective opened this weekend in Philadelphia and, as with the best retrospectives, it was an enveloping, nearly overwhelming experience. Gorky, who is important but whose name is never the first to be rattled off when talking about Modern Art, was an astonishingly proficient artist with an almost uncanny command of line, color, and composition. In the exhibit his career unfolds room by room, phase by phase, allowing you to learn in sequence about his work, his life, his practices, his disappointments, his triumphs, and finally his - I'm afraid so - tragic end. He arrived in the US after the genocide in his native Armenia (a tragic beginning too) and began soaking up wisdom and technique from observing art in museums. His first art god was Cezanne; the earliest examples of Gorky's work are super-copies of Cezanne, shockingly accurate in both spirit and letter. He later moved onto Picasso, again showing such virtuosity that I think he could easily have made a lucrative career as a forger. At one point he did only drawings because he had no money for paint - the large format pencil works in the series "Nighttime, Enigma, Nostalgia" were one of the highlights of the show for me. His individuality emerged as he went on, in subject matter, especially works such as the iconic memory portraits of himself and his mother, and later in looser, more colorful abstract compositions of great complexity. The 1940's was a high point - it was dizzying to stand in the room with his work from that time among so much color and energy. The painting "The Liver is the Cox's Comb" (1944) thought by some to be his masterpiece, is thankfully here, and it is a feast. Leave a comment - do you know Gorky? Have you see the show? What do you think?

Inside the Artist's Studio

No matter what you hear, there's a lot more going on in Philadelphia than baseball (ok, ok - Go Phillies!) The past two weekends were Open Studios in Philadelphia, Oct 3-4 before for those East of Broad Street (AKA Avenue of the Arts) and Oct 10-11 for those West of Broad Street. I'm closer to the eastern side of things, so have to admit that I gotten to know more places in my area, but little by little I'm venturing further afield. As I've been saying, Philadelphia is a place where things are happening - I'm so impressed with the amount and quality of contemporary art going on here. One of the real advantages for artists here is the relative availability and affordability of studio space; there seems to be a good supply of old industrial buildings that are perfect for community artist buildings. One of them, at 915 Spring Garden in the Art Museum district, is a 5 story stack of large and small spaces providing work space for creative, active artists of all types, some of whom, like Chuck Soldano, an interior designer, have have been in the building for 10 years or more. Plenty of the artists took part in the Open Studios; a couple of my favorites were a young painter named Greg Prestegord and the photography team of Shelly Lependorf and Stan Shire. I'd run into Greg at his gallery in Old City a few weeks before I discovered him at 915 Spring Garden so it was a nice chance for me to see more of his robust, colorful, beautifully drawn local scenes. He has a wonderful eye and an ability to make the simplest, most ordinary moment resonate with a kind of joyous depth. Shelly and Stan's photographs are rich and evocative; the landscapes I saw were sensitive compositions full of deep color, or as in one image of a wintry field of leftover hay, delicate strokes of grey against dense white. To see more of these artists's work see their websites: http://gregoryprestegord.com/ http://www.chucksoldano.com/ http://www.lseditions.com/

A New Old Museum for Philadelphia

As we all know, you can please some of the people all of the time, and all of the people... no, stop there. When it comes to the Barnes Collection, all of the people will never be pleased. The idea of relocating the superb and under-known collection to Philadelphia, moving it from the beautiful BeauxArts building in residential Merion, PA, to the heart of the city near the Rodin Museum and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, has been a raging controversy for some time, stoked by all kinds of rational and irrational arguments. Doctor Albert Barnes hated the Philadelphia museum establishment, (far more conservative, surely, during the early 20th century than today) but failed to secure the future of his building and collection, so it was decided that the only solution was to move it (a gross oversimplification of a complicated story.) My feelings were mixed - in theory and from a distance I was opposed to moving it, but I revisited it recently and am now all in favor of the move. It's hard to find enough superlatives for the collection - it's one of the great treasures of this country - and at present only a very small number of people have access. It isn't easy - first of all, you have to make an appointment (strictly limited by date) and you have to have a car. Barnes was an amazingly visionary collector; he trusted his own judgment and spent generously when he found an artist he liked - his favorites include Matisse, Renoir, Cezanne, and Soutine. There are lots of others, some not so great, and much art that isn't modern or western, but the reputation of the collection rests on the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists. One of the arguments against moving it is the eccentricity of Barnes's vision for hanging his art; his strict formalist theories about pattern, shape, and color rule the galleries. The arrangement of the art, which is sometimes just plain weird, is part of the art. If this aspect were to be disregarded it would nullify any arguments in favor, but the new building will reproduce the galleries in exact detail. This morning I went to the Public Arts Council of Philadelphia meeting to see the presentation of the design and was truly impressed. The architects, Tod Williams and Billie Tsien, have created a thoughtful, respectful, sensitive plan for the new museum, one that conveys both the spirit and the letter of the Barnes Collection, complete with landscaping to reflect the integration of the original building with the important arboretum that is part of the Barnes legacy in Merion. I wish you could have been at the meeting - the comments afterward were the extremes of pro and con, with the opposition (many of whom are people from Merion who tried to stop the Barnes from sullying their community originally and now don't want it to move) especially 'extreme' in their vocal protests about the move itself (see today's NYTimes review or Robert Venturi's letter in the LA Times for more on this theme) but when the dust settled, the plan passed the committee unanimously. Philadelphia will be richer for this new addition which is scheduled to open in 2012. Start making plans now.