Working in the bronze foundry near Ayuthaya, Thailand is art on an industrial scale. The energy conveyed through the noise, smell, and visual overload is only matched in our experience by the earth shaking intensity of the limestone mills in southern Indiana. But it is stimulating to be surrounded by fine artists working with a superb technical staff.
Meiling stands next to the tiny rat which will accompany a 200+ foot high Ganesha
The scale of the bronze casting is astonishing. The largest piece that the foundry is working on is a 90-foot standing Ganesha, the elephant headed god, who is destined for a temple in southern Thailand. The smallest pieces are scores of palm sized religious sculptures or kitschy elephants for the souvenir market. In between are life sized portrait sculpture, memorial plaques, and lots of artistic experiments by artists both Thai and foreign.
A polisher works on Chatchai Puipia's self portrait
We were introduced to the foundry by Chatchai Puipia, a Thai painter who turned to bronze to realize some sculptural projects he had previously executed in less permanent materials.
Mei-ling Hom writes poetry on the wax for one of her clouds
Mei-ling Hom is casting a group of bronze clouds with various surfaces including a pair inscribed with royal poetry outlining the recipes for traveling food. We started this project last winter and have returned to check the first group of castings and complete the second group.
Chatchai Puipia's large bronze legs
Chatchai is in the final stages of an enormous project which included a pair of crossed legs now installed in the Napa Valley, an edition of seated popes based on a self portrait, and a whole range of cheeky figures peering back through their spread legs.
Ravinder Reddy (L) and Chatchai Puipia in front of Reddy's sculpture
Another artist working for the first time in a large scale in bronze is Ravinder Reddy, an Indian sculptor noted for his figurative fiberglass work. His large portrait is destined for a sculpture park in Thailand, but he hopes to cast a series of other portraits for potential siting in other countries.
Most artists arrive with models of the work to be cast but some sculptors have braved the heat and roar of the foundry to create their original works. The models are then enlarged either by the computer controlled triaxial milling machine which creates a styrofoam blank of approximately the final size or by a team of technicians who create a final sized model by eye. In either case the sculptor must then apply the final touches to the model in plaster or plastiline. Almost all the casting is then done by creating a wax model from the plaster/foam original.
Pouring bronze into redhot ceramic shells
The wax is coated with a ceramic shell which is heated until the wax runs out leaving a void which is in turn filled with molten bronze to create a likeness of the original. When cool, the shell is chipped away and the casting channels and flaws are ground off. If the piece is very large it may be cast in sections, which are welded together.
A sea of Ganesha images rough from the mold
The welds have to be ground flush and then the whole work is polished several times before the final patina is applied. The air is full of bronze dust and fine plaster and silica dust. The energy level of the foundry is very high and while this can be stimulating during the working day we certainly slump at quitting time. Final recovery is best effected by a cool twilight picnic in the nearby ruins of the historic capital of Ayuthaya.
--Mei-ling Hom is working on a permanent installation for the Philadelphia airport to be installed in the Fall of 2009 and David McClelland is working as the English editor of the "Leg Up Society", a Thai arts group.
In the Half Sleep, 2008, 16 ½ X 16 inches, All photos courtesy the artist and List Gallery
Fiber artist Michael Olszewski makes abstract but highly textured collages that creep up and assert their presence slowly--aesthetic journeys for the eye.
Most of Olszewski's work is based on slow processes--crocheting and other needlework and fiber processes like couching and embroidery and dying, journeys for the artist in his studio as he works. But they also are aesthetic journeys for the soul.
Michael Olszewski, Undercurrent, 2007, 12 X 9 ¾ inches
That sense of patience, thought and emotion comes through powerfully in an exhibit at Swarthmore's List Gallery, of 26 works, including four (equally somber and heartfelt) watercolors.
Michael Olszewski, Downpatrick Head #2, 2005, watercolor, 7 x 7 inches
Olszewski, a long-time professor of textile design at Moore College of Art and Design, works in a vocabulary is staunchly Modernist, with cubes and vortexes that bring to my mind Malevich and Richard Long. But unlike Malevich, there's a mappy, landscape undercurrent in all the work, and not just in the landscape watercolors in the exhibit (that date from a recent residency at Ballinglenn Arts Foundation in Ireland).
Michael Olszewski, Disquiet, 2008 11 X 9 ½ inches
Olszewski's palette has long been on the somber side--mostly blacks and grisaille--and in this case it is appropriate for the events they reflect in his life--the loss of his father and the disintegration of his mother's mind to Alzheimer's, a subject that seems to crop up regularly lately among work by artists of a certain age. Olszewski uses Eva Hesse-like tangles to express the mental loss, but he restrains it in scale and in setting.
Michael Olszewski, Walls, 2008. 12 X 10 inches
What's great about Olszewski's work is you don't need to know this background to find a way in to the marvelous textures and map-like landscapes of fabric. And no matter how closely you look at these detailed images, you cannot get their full impact without being in their presence.
Amy Stein gave a talk at University of Pennsylvania last Thursday, in conjunction with her show at The Print Center (1614 Latimer Street until February 14th) and the publication of her book (“Domestications” by Amy Stein published by Photolucida, Portland ORE). She laid out a clear analysis of her development as an artist and a person, showing images mostly from 2 bodies of work: “Domesticated” and “Stranded” . Some of the images are compelling in themselves, but it is she and the trajectory of her work that holds a fascination. Stein came to art after a career as editor of the blog “policy.com”, and her work has a distinct but undercover political stance (which she freely admits). She says that this artwork is especially satisfying to her because of the freedom to say one thing while simultaneously saying something else (actually, politics could have been a great realm for this also).
The lecture opened with some shocking early work in which she collaborated with taxidermists, using stuffed creatures to set up theatrical scenes about hunting. Seeing the results made her realize that her basic anti-hunting stance and the shock of the needless death of an animal previously free and wild was not enough for her. There was an issue both more topical and more universal, about the fear engendered when the wild and the domestic collide.
Amy Stein, from the series Domesticated.
There are lots of examples nowadays of wild animals invading space we consider our own. Ms Stein began by collecting stories from the police and from ordinary people in the small town of Matamoros PA , on the edge of a wilderness area. Wild animals come into town for high-calorie trash food, and then forget about hunting and become pests instead. The photographs in this series are of vulnerable people near their small, unassuming houses, acting out these stories for Stein, who uses wild animals that have been skinned and stuffed as props. In some cases the juxtaposition of Stein’s shocking subjects with the obvious contrivances of her compositions makes for melodrama and a high kitsch factor. For instance in one, a large and very active bear is silhouetted in front of a chain-link fence that separates him from a young girl stiffly posed on a diving board. The girl’s face is hidden, so she could be anyone. The fence protects her from the bear and detaches us from her by hiding her face. It is like a Grimm’s fairy tale, in which a child confronts violence and order wins out in the end.
Though we accept that Stein has her finger on a live pulse, so to speak, the look of the image is fake, and we understand the up-front awkwardness as a way of distancing us from any real trouble. In this ambivalent effort to manipulate emotion, they are similar to her hunting images, though the stories are more complex and subtle, and she is using photo manipulation to tell them, rather than setting them up for real.
Interestingly, the last story she told is one in which the image kind of got lost. It is about a bear who died because he got his head stuck in a plastic food jar. She couldn’t find a jar that would fit over the head of a stuffed bear, because of the rigid ears. So she put a plastic grocery bag over his head, took a picture, and left it at that. Though her visual is a failure in terms of telling the story, conveying the emotion, or making a resonant object, she still wanted to show it. The basic point seems to be political, trying to change people’s attitudes through art, more than about the art object.
Amy Stein, from the series Stranded
The second group of photos, called “Stranded” was begun concurrently with “Domesticated”. In these Stein tries a different strategy. She obsessively drives around the country looking for stranded motorists to photograph, and inevitably ends up trying to help them. She says that people do not usually identify the photos as having overt social implications, but certainly they are present as an undercurrent. Getting stuck by the side of the road often signals a life on the edge economically and in other ways. So there is certainly a political message, but that’s not all there is. “Stranded” explores people who are actually in extremis, whose road trip has been short circuited into the twilight zone. The safe cocoon is revealed to be an illusion, and they are often angry and frightened. The first time she stopped her car and asked if she could take a picture, she herself was terrified. She describes the experience as intense, beautiful, and exhilarating, which I guess is because she is putting herself in harm’s way. Her fear reaction is part of what goes into the mix, to make these pictures both powerful and authentic.
As in her previous work, her aim is to make portraits of a state of mind, not portraits of individuals who are in distress. It is again, exploring the anxious territory between the domestic and the wild. The difference is that she has now put herself in position to take photos of something real that expresses what she wants to say, instead of contriving something in imitation of life, that inevitably looks fake. I think these pictures are more successful because they are more pared down and unified in their stance, less confusing and more beautiful.
Amy Stein, from the series Stranded
It has been said (by Grace Paley in an essay giving advice to young writers) that if you have a subject and you don’t really understand what it’s about, that is an appropriate topic for a work of fiction. Amy Stein is exploring such topics, and the energy that brings is a great strength in her work. Her explorations have the mysterious, odd, and compelling combination of the obsessive and of expedient practicality.
--Artist Ann Northrup is painting her seventh mural for the Mural Arts Program, this one on the side of Vetri at Juniper and Spruce streets. Here's a post on her mural at K&A.
artblog contributor Max Mulhern recently wrote us:
Tyler Green of Modern Art Notes has suggested that a White House arts advisory be created. His argument is that culture is a vital sector in our society that needs to have its institutions properly coordinated between themselves and the government. He also believes that art can play a role in government. I agree.
Many of you have also been circulating emails about the issue. Here's the link to an online petition begun by Quincy Jones to ask President Obama to appoint a Secretary of the Arts.
Robert Arneson Lustred Rose, 1966 glazed ceramic 29x60 1/2 x 28"
From earthly delights in clay to pithy word art and a cerebral video animation, ICA's Spring shows are bon bons of creamy goodness, crunchy ideas and beautiful packaging.
Kathy Butterly speaking about her sexy pots at ICA's opening.
The big downstairs show, Dirt on Delight, commands attention by sheer volume of gorgeousness on display. The survey of sculptural clay brings together 22 artists breaking ground in the traditional craft material. While you may think of clay as a woman's art, this show -- almost evenly divided between men (12) and women (10) -- demonstrates how clay draws all makers to its primordial squish and its promise of magical transformation from dirt to glazed, painted or patinated delight.
Ann Agee Agee Manufacturing Co. (Winter Catalogue), 2008 glazed porcelain and wood table table h?x48x96"
What ICA curators brought together, in a show that will travel to the Walker Art Center this summer, ranges from fussy to brute: From Ann Agee's delicate porcelain figurines that are updates of Royal Doulton collectibles to Sterling Ruby's Giacometti-like skeletal forms in tantric poses.
Kathy Butterly's pots are body-referencing and autobiographical.
Throughout, the works by early 20th Century masters (many of them dead now) echo through time with work made today. Ken Price's biomorphic blobs, heavily painted and sanded to reveal deep pockets of color and mystery, are placed near Kathy Butterly's pinch-pot-like wonders.
Ken Price Zyko, 2008 painted clay and wood pedestal part 1 7x25 1/2 x 12" part 2 8 1/4 x 25 1/2 x 36"
Butterly's humble and sensuous pots with their blush pink colors and lady-like touches ("Cenote" wears a string of pearls) are Beauty to Price's Beast.
Robert Arneson John Figure 1965 glazed stoneware 35x60 1/2 x 28"
Or maybe Robert Arneson is the Beast. The California clay funk-master's works broadcast pleasure and a kind of untamed life force. The tiny and tortured self-portrait busts – reminiscent of old master heroic busts – are both ego-mocking and life-questioning, and full of energy.
Robert Arneson Trophy Busts (1978) glazed porcelain 7 3/4 x 4 1/2 x 3"
Arneson's lusty and lumpy Gold Lustred Rose (top image) and his John Figure, a life-sized stoneware "john" with a female torso on top –-are the 3-D equivalent of R. Crumb's sexy and primal cartoons.
Paul Swenbeck Mandragora, 2008 Egyptian paste, glazed terra cotta clay, paint and resin 3 pieces, 12 x 12 x 14" each
It's great to see local artists Jane Irish and Paul Swenbeck included in this mix. Irish makes dreamy gold-trimmed vases that parody the Rococco age. Onto the works the activist artist paints scenes of political turmoil, injustice and human rights violations—speaking truth to power in a sly package.
Jane Irish's rococco pots with political content
Swenbeck's Salem witchcraft-inspired sculptures have been sited – appropriately -- next to outsider artist Eugene Von Bruenchenhein's homemade crowns and vessels.
Sterling Ruby Blue Angel
Like the other groupings of objects in this show the pairing of these unique works makes sense. This big show raises issues about beauty, craftsmanship, decoration and the importance of clay in art's future. It's truly a delight.
Paul Swenbeck talking about his works.
Ann Agee speaking about her work.
Nicole Cherubini speaking about her work.
Betty Woodman speaking about her work.
In the upstairs galleries, Joshua Mosley's "dread," a lyrical disquisition on God and Anthony Campuzano's "Touch Sensitive," an installation of word pieces concerning human foibles both speak eloquently on important issues and deliver their message in engaging open-ended dialog with the viewer. More on them soon.
Spencer Finch does Jorge Pardo in the gallery front window at James Cohan Gallery (see way below). Beautiful or ugly? You decide.
Once again we went to hear Robert Storr at the Met last Saturday. (See previous post for Storr's lecture on abstraction last week. ) We were looking for the light as usual but by the time the lecture ended we were confused as ever about the lecture's point. In a lecture that ran at breakneck speed through a zillion slides with not a lot of commentary here's what he said, more or less.
Beauty is a mutable concept the standards of which change through time. Jackson Pollock's paintings were regarded as ugly in their day...Beauty fell out of fashion when feminists questioned accepted standards in art -- beauty based on the male gaze on female nudes. He defended unbeauty as a term because ugly is too limiting.
digression from Libby and Roberta--see NY Times magazine article about women's sexuality. The male gaze has a genetic justification and so does the phenomenon of women dressing up and preeening. It's hard-wired according to recent research.
Storr quoted Edmund Burke on how beauty and the sublime are not the same. Beauty is lesser; sublime is greater than us...overwhelming and threatening.
Beauty is proportionate, orderly, follows rules and is conservative. Storr said beauty becomes wearisome after a while. He kept referring to the beauty brigade and the beauty sweepstakes winners. We think he was talking about painters and critics and apologists for beauty without content. His argument seemed to suggest that beauty needs content, needs unbeauty and needs threat to keep us interested long term.
"At no time are we mindless, as the beauty brigade would have us be," he said.
Our own idea of a beauty brigade, which we saw on Tenth Avenue, a site specific project by the NYC Department of Streets or Transportation or something. Beautiful or ugly? You decide.
Da Vinci used to follow deformed people and draw them. Beauty and unbeauty need each other to stake out their turf. Yadda yadda yadda.
We saw slides of the following artists:
Jackson Pollock, late de Kooning (which he thinks is beautiful); Frankenthaler (who he slapped down as merely beautiful and derivative); Morris Louis (Storr says he's back "in"); Brice Marden, Terry Winters and Howard Hodgkin (winners of the beauty sweepstakes but short on concept);
Some people who he loves for their ugly-beautiness (He ran breakneck through slides of all these artists -- and more -- and we left unclear what the argument was): Carroll Dunham , Elizabeth Murray, Mike Kelley, Sigmar Polke, Bruce Pearson, Karen Leydon (sp?) Ellen Gallagher, Fred Tomaselli, Sylvia Plimack Mangold, Rackstraw Downs, Gerhard Richter, some Lucien Freud (the Leigh Bowery ones. "He's an excellent painter but uneven (he experiments alot). zhe's interested in psychology but less so than people think), Philip Pearlstein (he's back in favor). William Bailey (Storr said Bailey invents all those still lifes!) , Lisa Yuskavage, John Currin, Eric Fischl (bad boy painting), Cindy Sherman, Francis Bacon (in again -- people are looking at him with new eyes), Louise Bourgeois, Kiki Smith, Jenny Saville, Ann Hamilton, Martin Puryear, Tom Friedman, Franz West, Jeff Koons, Andy Warhol (beauty becomes too much), Felix Gonzales-Torres.
Chelsea
Nathalie Djurberg at Zach Feuer, installation shot
The lecture was preceded by untold beauty and juice -- and a helluva lotta works on mylar -- in Chelsea. About that, we wonder is mylar biodegradable? If not, why are y'all working in it? This ought to be the age of paper.
And, we found a new (to us) aboveground tunnel that runs between 11th and the river between 27th and 28th so we stayed warm for that block. The real highlight was the art we saw, especially the (now closed) Nathalie Djurberg claymation video at Zach Feuer. This is an artist who is very young but she's not afraid to wade into the world of race relations and female body issues. If we're talking beauty this is the kind of beauty we love. (Although he didn't mention her, Djurberg fits Storr's definition of beauty fraught with contradictions. We'll take her over Lisa Yuskavage and John Currin any day.)
Nathalie Djurberg at Zach Feuer.
Djurberg, who we've seen and loved in group shows at ICA and the New Museum (links below) is about identity politics and politics. I found myself alone (2008) shows a dark-skinned ballerina twirling in a white world of confections and crockers, all white but for her. Over time she is overwhelmed-- although not before she gets a little of her color smeared on things--and is frosted over by the oreo filling, dripping candles and frosting. A haunting, music-box-like soundtrack by Djurberg's boyfriend Hans Berg perfectly sets the tone--one of sadness and beauty.
Djurberg also had another piece in her show, Of course I am working with magic, 2007 a stop-action animation made with charcoal on paper in the mode of William Kentridge. The subject -- like her piece at the New Museum -- pits nature against woman and woman against herself in an open-ended drama involving magic and witchery in a fairy tale forest far from Middle Earth.
Natalie Djurberg, Swedish-born 30-something artist. I found myself alone, 2008 Clay animation, digital video 9:45 Edition of 4 Music by Hans Berg
Roberta and Cate check out the pendulous kaleidoscopes in a show of art from Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg
We also pursued the artists of Northern Europe in the show, I love Benelux at Virgil de Voldere Gallery. We met Virgil, too, and he recognized Cate who had been his teacher in a computer graphics course years ago at NYU. Amazingness! She remembered his project.
Frans van Tartwijk, Weekend
We loved the show which he had invited Italian-born, Amsterdam based artist Nina Bovasso to curate. It was full of painting, clay sculpture and very Euro (ie unembarrassed nudity and a lack of coyness about issues of the body, sex and paint). We loved the directness of the paintings--most of which were narrative, unframed, and pinned to the walls. We especially love the mockumentary series by Frans van Tartwijk which seems to chronicle the lives of a cult of artists as they perform various arty farty things. This is surreal without being pretentious. That's something.
Even the portraits feel different.
Virgil de Voldere, Cate and Libby in the gallery. We love Virgil's hair...We now know two Virgils and Libby knows a Seneca.
The earthiness of the clay and the brut ad hoc making of the interactive kaleidoscopes are friendly and accessible and fun. And it's got the ugly thing going on and some existential angst that's right in tune with what everyone's making all over the world. In general, the show has no self-conscious bones in its bodies and no post-modern posturing. This is one of the better group shows we've seen in a gallery lately.
Virgil told us that J Shih Chieh Huang, one of our favorite artists, will be featured as one of the artists in his booth at Pulse Art Fair in March. J just finished a Smithsonian Artist Research fellowship where he studied underwater creatures. Can't wait to see what comes of that. We've been following this artist since we saw his robot critters at Vox Populi back in early artblog days, in 2004.
Down the hall from the gallery we saw Dona Nelson's work in a group show at Thomas Erben where half the Tyler campus had signed the guest book for the Tyler prof. Good show.
Dona Nelson at Thomas Erben Gallery
Michael Waugh
Michael Waugh, Plus Je Vois les Hommes, Plus J'admire les Chiens, 2008, detail, diptych, 28.5 x 22.5 unframed, ink on mylar
Every one loves a dog show and this show at Schroeder Romero is no exception. We loved it! Michael Waugh uses text from commission reports and embeds it in his ink on mylar drawings -- or privileged pets cribbed from old master prints, drawings and paintings. He painstakingly transcribes the text -- the text is his mark-making -- into the image of the pampered pooches. It's political work; it's beautiful; it's fun -- like a puzzle. And the points he's making are devastating: All these words have been written in pursuit of making the world a better place and none of the commission reports have really done the job. While we were there we saw a little commerce in action as a lady collector bargained over the price of a piece. (see the detail of the piece above) . The Social Security Commission (part 1) Michael Waugh.
The show's title, The more I see of men, comes from this quote: "The more I see of men, the more I admire dogs." Jeanne-Marie Roland 1754-1793
At Winkleman, Works from Paul Chan + The Front, including by (left to right, top to bottom) Jennifer Odem, Jonathan Traviesa, Michelle Levine, Stephanie Patton, Rachel Jones, Paul Chan, Megan Roniger, Andrea Ferguson, Claire Rau, Morgana King, Jeff Rinehart + Natalie Sciortino, Kyle Bravo, Julie Pieri and Jenny LeBlanc. part of show curated by Joy Garnett. These works all refer to the Ninth Ward in NOLA post Katrina.
Both Schroeder-Romero and Winkleman, next door, back onto the tunnel we told you about above. This month's show at Winkleman, Things Fall Apart, is curated by Newsgrist's Joy Garnett. The title suggests Chinua Achebe's book by the same name, which describes a tribal culture falling apart amidst Africa's urbanization. It also refers to William Butler Yeats' apocalyptic The Second Coming--"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold." This show is about everything falling apart, from nature to buildings to relationships to American government (in its lack of response to Hurricane Katrina) to the world. It's a very ambitious show that included a panel discussion with Paul Chan and his posse from New Orleans, the artist collective The Front.
Susan Hefuna, from the Building Series, each 21 x 27 inches framed, ink on tracing paper, courtesy of Albion, New York
There was nice work in the show, including Garnett's own two river paintings about the Three Gorges Dam. A couple of the photos of the decaying New Orleans are quite poignant. Much of the work was about buildings. Among the strongest and most unique were Susan Hefuna's works from the Building Series, non-rectilinear and abstract renderings of Islamic lattice-work window screens. They have an endearing knitted quality.
Joy Garnett, River 4 and River 5 oil on canvas. both 26 inches high. River (4) is 32 inches, (5) is 36 inches wide. part of show curated by Joy Garnett
From Joy Garnett to Ode to Joy
Sun Jun performs Ode to Joy in Allora & Calzadilla's piece at Gladstone
Speaking of politics and Joy and things falling apart, Allora & Calzadilla's Stop, Repair, Prepare performance at Gladstone is a quick hit of alternative music when we least expected it. We were not alone--the gallery was full of people who stopped to listen to Sun Jun performing a variaation on Beethoven's Ode to Joy in a specially hollowed-out piano. Originally executed in Munich -- where it must have had great reverberations with the recent and not so recent history -- the piece reverberated literally as well as figuratively. We love that the piano "walked" through the gallery. Apart from the politics the piece has great visual and aural power. Jun is one of a team from all around the world who will perform the piece. See the website for more.
Space Shapers
Alan Saret, evoking Eva Hesse's tangles.
We were impressed by the museum-quality group show, Shaping Space, at James Cohan a sculpture show with a lot of rocks and clouds in it plus a lot of architecture by big names from Richard Long to Tara Donovan. The show is a roundup of major artists but it's smaller than the sum of its parts--mostly the works don't talk to each other. The siting or placement of works undermined the discussion between works. Alan Saret is big in this show although he's new to us. Apparently his post-minimal work was big in the 1960s but then he dropped out. Here he is again in work that is a little bit Eva Hesse and very much a counterpoint to Fred Sandback's straight-string drawings. Sandback is also in the show.
Tom Friedman, Cloud, pillow stuffing, at James Cohan, reminds us of Mike Stifel's soap bubble rocks/clouds at FLUXspace last year.
Camile Corot Fontainebleau: Oak Trees at Bas-Bréau, 1832 or 1833 Oil on paper laid down on wood; 15 5/8 x 19 1/2 in., Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Studying Nature: Oil Sketches from the Thaw Collection at the Morgan Library
Oil sketches present a particularly intimate view of the artist’s working process. Usually defined as works created out of doors and directly in front of the subject (although views out a studio window may qualify), the earliest date to the 17th century although the bulk of the genre dates from the late 18th- early 19th centuries. They can be considered paintings as they are executed in oils, but the fact that many are on paper (often mounted to canvas later to increase their sales value) means that they can be found in drawings collections as well. They are always small, as they had to be easily portable.
John Constable Cloud study, horizon of trees 27 September 1821, oil on paper laid on board, 25.8 x 30.5 cm, Royal Academy of Arts, London.
The Morgan Library is currently celebrating a recent gift with Studying Nature: Oil Sketches from the Thaw Collection, an intimate exhibition of twenty works, as befits its subject. Eugene V. and Clare Thaw began as collectors of old master drawings, assembling a spectacular collection which they have been donating to The Morgan Library through the years (more than 80 of which are exhibited in another gallery) and recently gave 135 oil sketches jointly to the Morgan and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
As works made for the artists’ private use rather than for sale many oil sketches were unsigned and collectors’ and scholarly interest in the genre, which only dates from the 1970s, has devoted a lot of effort to identifying the artists. The exhibition includes well-know artists such as Corot and Constable as well as a range of lesser or barely-known French, British, German, Belgian, Scandinavian, and Italian painters. The renown of the artist has little effect on the appeal of the sketch.
Simon Denis (Belgian, 1755–1813) Mountain Landscape at Vicovaro, oil on paper, 8 5/8 x 12 7/8 in., The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
On Saturday The Morgan held a symposium on New Research on Oil Sketches, which I attended in the helpful company of my friend, Daisy Craddock, a painting conservator and a landscape painter who does sketch outdoors (albeit in pastel). The opening talk was by Charlotte Gere, an independent scholar who with her husband John, Keeper of Drawings at the British Museum, assembled a collection of oil sketches beginning in the 1950s which they later donated to the National Gallery, London. She described a time when these little paintings were so ignored that they were still within range of scholars and curators, making the entire audience jealous with recollections of purchases for five pounds Sterling.
Winslow Homer Artists Sketching in the White Mountains (1868) oil on panel, 9 1/2 x 15 7/8 in., Portland Museum of Art, ME. Homer shows artists at portable easels, under umbrellas to baffle the light. A backpack for carrying the equipment is in the foreground.
Ann Hoenigswald, conservator at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, spoke about the paint-handling that sketches involved, which because of time constraints and the necessity to work with wet paint consisted of a sort of short-hand for recording effects of the landscape. She described artists not only adding but also removing paint with their fingers, rags, sponges and both the hair and butt ends of their brushes. She also showed pictures of artist’s work boxes and easels designed for out-doors work; one advertisement bragged that an artist using its contraption could paint while running after animals! Her images included a number of wicked caricatures of painters working out of doors, chasing after sketches as they blew away and huddling en mass in front of a view.
Artist Emil Kosa Painting (1941) photograph by Peter Stackpole. The kit for outdoor painting didn’t change much from the 19th to the 20th century.
John Gage, noted scholar of color, recounted artists’ frustration with their materials in front of nature as well as the difficulties pleine air painting posed from the weather and banditti; Corot mentioned a pistol as part of his equipment. Gage mentioned the irony that while greens were the color most common in nature, they were the least available from paint manufacturers so artists had to resort to mixing greens before the practice of color-mixing was standard. Richard Rand, curator at the Clark Art Institute gave a provocative talk on the oil sketches that Claude Lorraine was said (by contemporaries) to have produced, although Claude’s drawings of artists working in nature always showed them as draughtsmen (see below). While two possible examples survive, the inventory from his estate mentions 137 small works and optimistic members of the audience might be on the lookout for the trove. If Claude actually worked out-doors in oils, said Rand, he would have been at the head of the European tradition. Claude Lorraine An Artist Sketching (ca. 1635) ink, 32.1 x 21.4 cm, The British Museum.
The afternoon closed with Courtauld Institute Professor John House’s ruminations on Impressionist paintings and whether they conformed to the earlier traditions of oil sketching. While small, portable and produced out of doors they were conceptually similar to finished paintings done in the studio. The earlier tradition of oil sketches, by House’s reckoning, rejected the conventions of landscape painting of the time, being anti-picturesque and avoiding the most obvious views of monuments and famous sites. Instead they favored novelty and a sense of discovery which would only have been appreciated by other artists or by connoisseurs very familiar with the subject.
Under the Eaves at The Morgan Library: The Thaw Conservation Center
Treatment area of the Thaw Conservation Center at The Morgan Library, supported by the collectors who donated the oil sketches.
Cherrywood cabinetry at the Thaw Conservation Center, The Morgan Library.
Daisy and I had a treat at lunch when Peggy Ellis, Director of the Thaw Conservation Center at The Morgan showed us the splendid facilities specifically designed to include areas for teaching and encourage curators, librarians, scholars and others to learn more about the materials and care of works on paper. The center was designed by Sam Anderson who also planned handsome conservation labs at MoMA and the Harvard University Art Museums. The cabinetry throughout is of the most beautiful cherry-wood, lending the space the feel of a library more than a laboratory. And there are subtle, humorous touches: an Ingo Maurer lamp with pendant pieces of paper greets the visitor and the receptionist’s desk is behind a screen of the sort used in paper-making.
Ingo Maurer’s Zettel’z 5 lamp hangs at the Thaw Center’s entrance, a whimsical touch for a paper conservation laboratory.
Critic R. B. (Bob) Strauss died Jan. 13. Here's a lovely appreciation and a video clip at DoNArTNeWs.
Bob explored many types of art and many venues in Philadelphia and he wrote for many local publications including Art Matters. He was 54 at his death from a heart attack according to this posting at PA8News but he'd been ill for several years. This story says there will be a memorial for him at High Tower Gallery in Philadelphia but I believe they mean Highwire Gallery.
It was always a pleasure to run into him in the galleries. He was cheerful and observant and his energy and passion for art were contagious. He will be missed.
A stack of monochrome marker drawings, with a common motif of stick figures linked by arrows to “$” icons and symbols of economic hardship: a boarded-up art gallery announcing “For Rent”; elsewhere, under a list titled “Basekamp costs”, the stratagem “Steal materials from construction sites.”These drawings were the fruit of a 2-hour workshop held at Basekamp this past Saturday.It followed the opening ofAn Atlas, an exhibit of "radical cartography" that compliments a two-volume publication of essays matched to artist-made maps.
Different approaches to the assignment “map the global economic crisis”
The workshop kicked off a global tour; Lize Mogel [pronounced ‘Lizzy’], who co-curated the exhibit, heads next to UtrechtThe assignment: draw a map of the global financial crisis, with yourself in the middle.Lize collects the resultant drawings – “a public archive of maps” – and will then re-interpret them, finding patterns, making a meta-map.A fertile mix of artists and non-artists were in attendance at Basekamp.One young-ish man who didn’t fit any artistic stereotypes programmed computers for a map company; he showed up because his boss had passed him an email.Knowing that Basekamp endorsed Marxist tenets, I was able to pick out the maps made by co-founder David Dempewolf.His stick figures centered around the text-bubble “CAPITALISM -FUELD CONSUMERISM GONE WILD.” Everyone found the exercise nearly therapeutic.Mary-Ruth Walsh, a Dubliner currently in residence at Basekamp, commented, “making maps to work through a particular problem – it’s a methodology I would use in my practice.”
Sorting through the finished maps
Lize followed the workshop with a lecture that interwove the past 10 years of her own practice with a millennium-spanning history lesson on maps.Her cartographic bug, she explained, developed out of an interest landscapes.She began her slideshow from this purely aesthetic approach, paging through her images shot from airplane windows -- “Here, I was just interested in patterns.”Then, we saw in situ images of “Public Green,” a heavily annotated schematic map of Los Angeles parks that was printed for hundreds of bus stops and invited close reading.Lize would be the first to admit that, like all maps, this one was ideological.It encouraged the low-income bus-riding demographic to utilize parks.(How does a young artist get exposure on ad space which mostly promotes movies to passing cars?Only by chance: Lize happened to meet a ClearChannel exec.)
From the L.A. region, Lize’s focus grew to encompass the world.On common maps, she explained, geometric distortions enlarge and center the west (or what the astute call “the global north”).To flatten the globe onto paper is to ‘project’ it; “my favorite projection,” Lize told us, “is the azimuthal…”The azimuthal?Yes; it places the North Pole squarely at the center, and became the emblem of the United Nations because of its egalitarian depiction of the continents.Lize’s 2008 piece ‘Area of Detail’ zooms in on that central void and denotes shrinking ice boundaries and currently contested national boundaries.(Remember when Russia planted a flag on the ocean floor several summers back?)The sharply designed map was printed on a rotating table top; on the wall adjacent, neatly arranged correspondence between national governments and the UN Commission on Limits to the Continental Shelf regarding of oceanic rights. “If you’re me,” she said, “it’s hilarious."
My favorite work, however, is Lize’s series (one of which is included in the current exhibition) of stark black-on-white forms, like a Rorschach but less chaotic.They represent the contours of shipping ports and other nodes in the flow of trade, traced from aerial imagery: visual distillations of globalization.Nearly all of the work on display exudes graphic design professionality.The only piece with painterly quality is Pedro Lasch’s “Latino/a America,” a reproduction of series of red maps which traveled across the Mexican boarder in the pockets or luggage of a particular person – each faded and worn differently, all beautiful.
To my disappointment, each piece in “An Atlas” is a crisp, computer-printed image on beautiful matte paper. The exhibit has been traveling, with modifications, since summer 2007, hence the expediency of doing without originals, and the project’s raison d’etre is really the published volume. Still, wouldn’t it be more fulfilling if original drawings traveled from city to city? Only Lize’s personal copy of Radical Cartography had this art-object aura. She passed it around after the talk. Its ragged condition, I first assumed, was an affect from the publisher, like “distressed” jeans, but no – this was Lize’s, and, like Lash’s piece, it has accompanied her on many travels.
Basekamp is at 7th & Chestnut, and the exhibit runs into March. They'll be open First Friday in February. The companion volume 'Radical Cartography' can be purchased there, or online. (And if you're an artist looking to live collectively and cheaply in Center City, inquire within.)
We recently got this note from Mei-ling Hom and David McClelland:
Mei-ling and I are working on a couple of projects in Thailand this winter, casting bronze sculpture and editing a funeral book for a close friend who decided he needed to have his life summed up long before (hopefully) he died. We needed to make a visa run to Singapore to extend our month in Thailand to two and we met a couple of people in Singapore who gave us a quick look at what is happening in the business capital of Asia. I hope to send a couple of future postings on the foundry in Thailand and some of the painters we find interesting in Bangkok.
Here's their first report
Post by Mei-ling Hom and David McClelland
full frontal view of the new Singapore Museum for Contemporary Art
A recent trip to Singapore gave us the chance to look in on the inaugural exhibition of the Singapore Art Museum’s new exhibition space called 8Q. Located in the newly renovated building of an old school at 8 Queen Street (hence 8Q) across from the main building of the Singapore Art Museum (also an old school), 8Q chose school as the subject of its first show. Eight installations curated by eight guest curators were ranged throughout the beautifully remodeled floors of the 1960s style structure. As with other Singapore projects a massive capital budget (reportedly 5.8 million Singapore dollars) has produced a singular physical space without a correspondingly effective staff and operating budget. This can be seen in 6 month long duration of the initial exhibition and the lack of any upcoming shows on the schedule. Much of the building seemed either empty like the prime spaces flanking the courtyard on the ground level or devoted to offices on the upper floors. Because taking photos of the art work was forbidden and the guards seemed suspicious of the bearded guy with the camera not every artist gets a picture but I did sneak out a few.
Video by Tan Kai Syng from the school show.
On the ground floor two large constructions presented disparate views of the school experience. A graphic arts collective which styles itself :Phunk Studio built a gable roofed construction roughly half the size of a regular classroom out of blackboards. Inside, a collection of conventional classroom furniture and slightly anarchic statements are meant to evoke some sort of schoolboy rebellion. The effect is heightened by the supply of chalk and erasers inviting the public to scrawl all over the exterior blackboard surface of the miniature classroom. The result is underwhelming, violence and obscenity are totally lacking and the carefully written graffitos don’t much rise above the level of Johnny loves Mary. Despite their name, :Phunk Studio has produced a very conventional memory of school days.
Jason Wee's arches
Jason Wee has chosen to subvert the school theme in a more obscure way. Building his installation of brightly colored paper covered cubes in the loading dock, he has produced a collection of enigmatic shapes which he illustrates on the wall and invites the viewer to reassemble mentally. There is something vaguely threatening about the size of these big shapes; it is a half remembered nightmare of some geometry test come to life.
Composer Chong Li-Chuan, the only artist to have actually attended this very school, created an aural collage of school bells and the theme from the school song deconstructed and rearranged to suggest the changes that time and reconstruction have had on the school of his childhood. The bare concrete of the museum corridors and the noise of visitors created an unkind sonic space for the installation but the faint sounds formed a haunting backdrop to a tour of what once must have been a very busy building. Tan Kai Syng also used a soundtrack, a much louder and more ominous one, to accompany the video she created of herself interacting with the spaces in the former school building. Running up and down the corridors and opening and closing doors, she evokes the fears of being late for classes or missing exams, those familiar fears that haunt our schoolday nightmares. Although the videos are dynamic they could have really swept the viewer away if they had extended to all four walls of the room.
Jahan Loh does careful grafitti
The least successful installations were Jahan Loh’s clumsy spray attempts at graffiti art and the very static grouping of ceramic objects by Ahmad Abu Bakar. While the ceramics themselves were not unappealing, they were merely set on the floor in one end of a sterile room without any sort of relevance to the space. A do not pass line on the floor kept viewers from examining them closely. This is not installation art. The problem with Jahan Loh’s wall work is that Singapore is not a place that permits the kind of transgressive art/vandalism that inspires the development of serious graffiti artists and his attempts would not rate a second glance on the walls of Philadelphia or LA.
Grace Tan
Jason Wee has a second installation on an upper floor that is uncomfortably paired with a grand light table piece by Grace Tan. She has a background in fashion design and her love for the pleasures of folding and pleating and cutting fine fabric is evident in the series of abstractions she calls Kwodrent. She has cut the tie that binds fashion to the human body and has produced simple appreciations of the sensuality of cloth. The split bamboo arches by Jason Wee that filled the other end of the same gallery are sketchily connected with tape to form meandering corridors but the whole work seems suspended between fine workmanship and brute energy without approaching either extreme.
