Scene from Milk

MILK
I saw the film “Milk” last night. I don’t want to build the movie up too much because there have been thousands of people who have fought valiantly for their rights throughout history–what makes Harvey Milk, a supervisor in San Francisco in the late 1970s any different? But Gus Van Sant’s direction and Sean Penn’s performance make this film truly wonderful. The film tells us the story of Harvey through the themes of humor, love, and most importantly, it celebrates the triumph of the human spirit to fight for what is right. Harvey simply wanted his life to make a difference. With Prop 8 passing in California recently, this film is more timely than ever. While watching the movie I began to reflect on how I proud I am to be a San Franciscan. That city is my home and had I not ended up living there during the formative years of my life, I would be a very different person today, and perhaps one that I wouldn’t like as much. Thank you Gus for making the film; perhaps because it is a mainstream movie, more people will see it and more eyes and minds will continue to be opened. Thank you Sean for another incredible performance and thank you Harvey for “recruiting” us.

Brooklyn Museum Shows

Jesper Just, still from Romantic Delusions, 2008

On one Sunday afternoon I ambitiously headed to the Brooklyn Museum to try to see shows featuring Jesper Just, Gilbert and George, photos by Timothy Greenfield-Sanders and works from the museum’s feminist art collection. My first stop was the Jest show. The work by the Danish artist, which I knew nothing about, was truly haunting and beautiful. His videos examine public displays of emotion among men and also deal with cross gender and generational relationships. He explores the notion of the human quest for individual identity. He reaches out to viewers through sentimentality in his films. His most recent work, “Romantic Delusions,” filmed in Romania shows a transgender man’s difficulty finding a place to fit in in the world. Projected on three screens in a huge room, the viewer becomes enveloped in this man’s world and feels his palpable sense of loneliness and anxiety. Most people probably walk right through those four rooms not giving the videos adequate viewing time but if you do slow down and give them a chance, they are pretty powerful—dark and disturbing because there are so many unanswered questions in the bizarre scenarios he creates. Loneliness, aging, desire for love are all themes he addresses and these are all human emotions that everyone experiences and can relate to but tend to shy away from. Confronted face to face in these videos, there is no escaping these issues. They challenge you to relate but also to have the strength to move on with dignity and courage. Interesting work.

Gilbert and George, Life, 1984 from series Death, Hope, Life, Fear

Portrait of Gilbert and George by Derry Moore, 1987

Gilbert and George is the blockbuster show that most people are going to see at the Brooklyn Museum. I have written about these two artists before after a lecture I saw last year. Their desire is that their art speak to people about their own lives and not about their knowledge of art. “The true function of art is to bring about new understanding, progress, and advancement.Our reason for making pictures is to change people and not to congratulate them on being how they are.” G & G  They have lived in London’s East End for the past forty years. At a time when minimalism was popular, they created living sculptures, including themselves in their work and as a result created figurative art. Early on their work dealt with “romantic, idyllic notions of becoming an artist.” Then they became intrigued by the urban environment they found right outside their home. Initially the color found in their works, which were predominately black and white, was applied by hand–with digital advancements that is no longer the case. They felt that dressing in suits all the time would make them more invisible and not an identifiable part of any group. They thought of photos as pictures and not photos per se. One work in particular that struck me was “Bombs” which documented the tube attacks in London on 7/7/05. Headlines torn from papers litter the work and the red used as well as the tombstone at the bottom of the work reflect what was happening in the world around them. Viewers are forced to confront issues due to the large scale of the works. You cannot miss the stark imagery or the message they are trying to convey. The galleries on two floors are filled with these immense works, every single one including the figures of both Gilbert and George. Their East End world envelops you whether you like it or not; it is art “for the people.”

Timothy Greenfield-Sanders, Toni Morrison, 2007, from www.brooklynmuseum.org

“The Black List Project” is a joint effort by photographer Timothy Greenfield-Sanders and film critic Elvis Mitchell. The title of the show is derived from a 1950s Communist hunt by Joseph McCarthy. Not only does the project include 25 portraits of famous and important black people, there is a 90 minute documentary that will air on HBO. In it, the people photographed give interviews which explore what it means to be black in America in 2008. Images of Sean Combs, Chris Rock, Colin Powell, Toni Morrison, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Thelma Golden (director of the Studio Museum in Harlem) are included in the exhibition.

Burning Down the House-50 works of art from the Brooklyn Museum and Sackler Center for Feminist Art is a show I was very much looking forward to seeing. The title refers to the “master’s house” which could be translated as the museum itself, a historical domain of male artists and art historians and/or as the proper place for a woman–the house. This show does not claim to assert a particular type or style of feminist art but simply presents an ongoing dialogue between past and present works by women. While there is some good art to see, I felt that the show lacked a cohesiveness and was the weakest of the exhibits visited at the museum.

Joan Miró, Painting (The Bullfight), 1927

Miro at MoMA
Joan Miro: Painting and Anti-Painting 1927-1937 at MoMA is a real gem of a show. Not being an artist myself, I am always fascinated by exhibitions which give you insight into what was going on inside an artist’s mind. And when a show focuses on a short period of the artist’s life, especially an artist like Miro whose work was so varied, it really allows you to see their growth and their work morph and develop into the quintessential style they are most known for. In the first gallery, the year is 1927 and Miro, residing in Paris, has declared death to painting; it was his desire to “assassinate” painting. The works in this section are very simple gesso on unprimed canvas. These works are spectacular. The white literally jumps off the canvas. There is a sense of whimsy and play that I found delightful in these paintings. In 1928, he travels between Paris and Spain and he makes collages, very simple works which are bare except for the found objects glued to the middle of the canvas representing Spanish dancers. By 1929 his paintings have begun to eliminate shading and modeling and are extremely surrealistic. This waffling between painting and collage was part of his experimentation with different forms of representation. In these works he often used ready-made, right out of the tube colors. These works sought to contradict the intense realism of the 17th century Dutch interiors. By the summer of 1929 he has moved to making collages of immense variety using materials such as wire, tar paper, and sand paper. In all of his work there is one constant, a tension between abstraction and figuration. This room happened to be my favorite. My minimalist tendencies reacted to the simplicity of these collages. It is interesting to note that he did sketches of every painting and collage he ever made. In 1930, he created some works that I found quite ugly but these were all part of the process that led him to his eventual style. “Large Paintings on White Grounds” were apparently put away and out of sight for many years but resurfaced for the purposes of this show. From 1930-1932 he also worked on “Constructions and Objects.” He used bells, bones and found imagery in his works. At this time he was good friends with the Dadaists and so his desire to assassinate painting was fueled by them. He was also friends with Calder, Arp, Picasso and one can see those influences in his work at that time. It is also clear that Rauschenberg’s assemblages were influenced by these wonderful works. By 1932 he was unable to continue to go back and forth from Paris to Spain so he went through a period of reassessment. By 1933, he made eighteen new collages and then based a larger painting on each collage. This room was intriguing because for the first time, all of these works are hung side by side so the process is striking in its visibility. In 1933-1934 he continues his collage experimentation using reflective material. These works clearly influenced artists like Rauschenberg and Pistoletto when they created works with reflective qualities which included the viewer as an important part of the work of art. In October of 1934 civil war broke out in Spain and the unrest is visible in Miro’s wild colored pastels. 1935 brings about a series of works on cardboard with oil paint and sand. His rope works from this period harken back to the Spanish dancer collage from 1928. In 1936 Miro created smaller works on copper and masonite. These works encourage the viewer to get close because of their small scale and detail, however, once the viewer hones in the subject matter, he/she is confronted with horribly disfigured forms and disturbing scenes. In these color is used aggressively as the Spanish Civil War is now in full swing. Other works from 1936 on masonite revisit the notion of leaving portions of a painting exposed. He also adds rocks, tar, and gouges the surface making truly abstract compositions. At this time he is forced to leave Spain and he returns to Paris. On January 12th, Miro writes his dealer, Pierre Matisse, and explains that he is going to do something radically different—he will paint from life. “Still Life with Old Shoe” from 1937 uses hallucinatory colors and brings the viewer full circle back to paintings that Miro is best known for. If you are unable to make it to New York you can see all of the works online at: http://media.moma.org/subsites/2008/miro/flashsite/index.html

John Baldessari talk at the Whitney

John Baldessari talk at the Whitney
Baldessari has always had a soft spot in my heart. He is known as an artist’s artist, one who has not always been commercially popular (though that has changed in the past few years), but one who is critically respected. He is from California and has taught at UCLA. His early paintings are based on imagery from billboards. He placed the work on sections of sheets like those used in bulletin boards (he claims to have a fascination with parts of things). In early works he paints parts of the human body such as a nose in the sky, a big toe, an ear, an eye with an eyebrow, etc. His titles are often a play on words. For example, an early work which was an homage of sorts to Robert Motherwell due to its color palette of blue and gold is called, “My heart Belongs to Dada but I know Motherwell.” Some of Baldessari’s newer work is quite sculptural. Color is painted directly onto the wall and then sculptural elements such as an ear or nose hang on the wall, protruding out. This was true of his work in the most recent Whitney Biennial. He is very well known for his images of eyes with furrowed brows. In the example we saw, the brow is 3-D and the colored furrows are carved out and recessed so the work becomes very abstract but also very three-dimensional. He began his career as a painter but then became more of a “photographer.” He was dissatisfied with the way art was taught to him, he felt it could be much more. He wondered why photography was considered different than other art. He has always tried to think about what art might be–has the potential to be. He felt constrained by the painting’s stretcher and even with photography by the smallness of the viewfinder and the paper it must be printed on. He has always admired artists such as Sigmar Polke for being what he calls, “artless.” He wonders, “As long as the art is on canvas, what else would it be other than art?” So he has felt free to do whatever he wanted. As opposed to things a trained artist is not supposed to do, Baldessari always went there. A photographer is not supposed to place a person directly in front of a tree because it will look like the tree is growing out of the person’s head. So, he did just that and then had text at the bottom saying that is not what you are supposed to do. I love the humor and sarcasm in his work. He does not take himself too seriously and as a result, there is a sense of play that is inspiring and very enjoyable for the viewer. He began to appropriate images and used movie stills for no other reason than that they were very cheap. He built up an archive and categorized them. He always enjoyed the images that were the most banal. He painted circles on the faces of the figures initially because he couldn’t stand looking at the faces; so he put price stickers over the faces in an image and he thought, “hmm, well now that really levels the playing field.” When we first look at someone we usually look at their face first. If we get rid of that it allows us to see what they are doing, their body, their pose, etc. He now paints the circles and you can see the brushwork; he enjoys that process. These works are not really photography and not really paintings but something in between the two—hybrids. He does not care about making work that is beautiful. “I learned a lot from Sol Lewitt,” he claims. He tries to make lemonade out of lemons and still going strong at 77 he has earned the right to do whatever he wants to.

As a teacher, his desire to give his students courage is admirable. They need confidence and are afraid of looking stupid. He compared it to trying to get a plant to grow. It needs encouragement and tlc. Though he stated that, “The students are like vampires and you’ve gotta save a little blood for yourself, he has taught everything from preschool to graduate school for the past 30 years. It was only when he taught juvenile delinquents that he began to understand the real meaning of art. It held great importance to those kids. Through his teaching he says he really learned how to communicate through his art. When asked if he saw making art as play his answer was a resounding. “YES!” He asked us to think about watching kids as they do art. they aren’t thinking about what they are doing, it is just language. That tends to go away as we get older and he tries to get back to some of that. A wonderful and humble man who, in my humble opinion, is still in touch with exactly what is special about art and the artistic process. Bravo, John!

Marlene Dumas, The Teacher (sub a), 1987

Marlene Dumas at MoMA
“Marlene Dumas Measuring Your Own Grave” is the South African artist’s first major US retrospective. Her work can be disturbing and difficult to view in its exploration of  the human condition. Dumas invites the “spectator to participate in the creation of meaning.” There is not one way to interpret the work, nor does Dumas want there to be. I have always enjoyed the unfinished watercolor-like quality to Dumas’s work in which the ink bleeds across the paper or canvas, especially in the portrait works I first viewed at the Venice Biennale many years ago.

One of my favorite works in the show is on the 3rd floor. “Don’t Talk to Strangers” from 1977 is like nothing I have ever seen by her before. It is a mixed media work made from oil, collage, pencil and tape on canvas. The title is written in cursive on the top and ripped fragments of salutations from letters line the edges on the left and right side. “Dear Marlene” appears all along the left side and on the right are the varied ways that people have signed off on correspondence the artist has received. There is a vast blank space in between with a light pencil line down the center separating the two sides. I love the minimalist nature of the work. The emptiness between the sides and the title cause the viewer to wonder what might have been said in all of this communication and also what statement is being made by not including it. Thought provoking.

Some of her subject matter and imagery reminds me of British artist Jenny Saville’s work. In particular “The Kiss” where a woman appears to be unconscious, only her head is visible and her lips are pressed against the floor. A skull image from 2005 may be where Hirst got inspiration for his diamond-encrusted skull as it is simply a large profile of a skull on a black background. However, Dumas’s work is much more interesting and there seems to be actual skill involved in its creation.

On the sixth floor, Dumas’s paintings are showcased and the haunting quality to her work envelops the viewer and is palpable and inescapable. The works investigate themes of death, birth, and violence in which distorted babies, dead people lying face down, and oddly colored body parts are highlighted. In a work called “The Teacher,” kids’ faces that range the colors of the rainbow have no detail except for dashes and dots as eyes fill the canvas. It is only the lone adult, the teacher in the center of the canvas whose face has the watercolory effect that I most often associate with Dumas. The detail on her face creates the notion that she is somehow unpleasant and malicious, perhaps an investigation of innocence versus evil. It is a fantastically complex work!

from Artist's Choice--Vik Muniz, Rebus at MoMA

Artist’s Choice + Vik Muniz= REBUS
The only way to describe this exhibition is that it is really cool. It sounds so juvenile but it fits. In this show, Muniz takes off his artist hat and dons a curatorial role assembling 82 works from MoMA’s permanent collection based on the principle of “rebus.” Rebus is defined by Muniz as “a puzzle in which unrelated visual and linguistic elements create a larger deductive meaning.” This show does not have one overarching theme but Muniz invites the viewer to think about the narrative that his/her brain creates when moving throughout the exhibition. He asks, “how does the space between the works impact that narrative?” I like how the objects are grouped even though each viewer will make his/her own connections when viewing the show. I was particularly fond of a section in which Henckel scissors are hung, a crumpled ball of paper is in a vitrine and a Baldessari work with a paper clip hangs on the abutting wall. This particular grouping wraps around the corner breaking the traditional curatorial mold and model which is refreshing. Muniz writes in the wall text, “Rebus is a cognitive, visual ride that I hope will affect how visitors experience art here and in the rest of the Museum.” My mind was dying for connections, as far fetched as some of them were it seemed human nature to want to group. For example, the plastic burger, photo of frozen foods by Irving Penn and the photo of a 1950s woman opening her refrigerator door made me think “food items and imagery.” Warhol’s Brillo Boxes, an Artschwager wooden crate and a Murphy graphite drawing of a cardboard box bottom all screamed the obvious link—“boxes.” However, when a Giacometti was thrown in between a Rubik’s cube and a paper bag, I struggled to find the association. Reflecting back on it now, it does seem like a puzzle. With works ranging from contemporary artists like Robert Gober and Jeff Koons to classic works by Eugene Atget and Pablo Picasso, the viewer is able to take in the entire scope of art on view because of the way it is hung. The fact that there is not one theme for the whole show frees the viewer to make up their own themes and appreciate works in all media and from all time periods. I really dug this show but then again I am a huge fan of Muniz’s work so it’s not surprising. The true test of its success will be if it affects the way I view the next exhibition I view. I’ll keep you posted.

Francis Bacon, In Memory of George Dyer, November-December, 1971, Courtesy of Gagosian Gallery

Bacon and Giacometti at Gago
Gagosian always puts on a great exhibition—what can I say! And “Isabel and Other Intimate Strangers: Portraits by Giacometti and Bacon” is no exception. This was my first visit to the expanded space at the Madison Avenue location and it did not disappoint. The show examines both artist’s desire to capture the human form as well as spirit in their portraits of family and loved ones. Isabel Rawsthorne was someone whom both artists depicted but in very different manners. She was Giacometti’s muse but more of a peer for Bacon. Many of the works on view are from private collections and so it is a real treat to see these works I have never seen before and will never see again. And looking carefully at Giacometti’s works juxtaposed with Bacon’s creates an interesting dialogue in their depiction of the figure. Both distort it, but the affect of each distortion is diametrically opposed. A wonderful show.

Henk Peeters, 61-26, 1961, Courtesy Sperone Westwater Gallery

Sperone Westwater
I was rushing to make it to an exhibition at Sperone Westwater (all the way in the meatpacking district) called “Zero in New York” last weekend. Boy was it worth the trip; what a pleasant surprise! I was unfamiliar with the members of the Zero group who “reacted to the personally-charged expressionism of the Post-War period. Zero artists aimed to banish any trace of a personal style and instead bring elements of the non-art world into their work. Informed by new materials and technologies, and incorporating elements of light, fire, and water, Zero was characterized by an idealistic spirit of collaboration in pursuit of new concepts of light, movement, and energy. Working in an environment without galleries and contemporary art spaces, these artists came together to exhibit their work in a series of one-day-only evening exhibitions, often staged in their studios.”- Sperone Westwater press release. At the beginning of the exhibition a wall of black and white photos of the artists and installations gives the visitor some context. Work in the show focuses on the period between the late 1950s and late 1960s. Some artists I had heard of before but most of them were unfamiliar to me. Included were works by Manzoni, Arman, Fontana, Castellani (the ones I had heard of), Schoonhoven, Graevenitz, Luther, de Vries, Mack, and Megert. There is one room with works from ceiling to floor. Though monochromatic, the variety of textures is amazing and the overall affect is fantastic. The show is really stunning! My favorite work is by the artist Henk Peeters. “61-26″ from 1961 is a mixed media work with a rectangle made of either cotton or insulation covered by white nylon over a canvas. It was like a sculptural Rothko. I loved the feel of this work.

Aldrich Museum

Aldrich Museum in Connecticut
On a chilly Sunday afternoon I hopped the shuttle from Chelsea to Ridgefield, CT for my quarterly visit to The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum. There were multiple shows on view and so it seemed like a nice way to get out of the city for even a short while.

On view were four works on paper and a large sculpture by emerging artist award winner, Huma Bhabha, a Pakistani young female artist who lives and works in Poughkeepsie, NY. Her work is haunting in its fragmentation of the human body, however, the viewer is also constantly drawn to it aesthetically, perhaps because of the many art historical references and associations the work provides. As the text for the work states, “Her amalgamation of a variety of influences establishes a universal language for sculpture that transcends cultural and historical boundaries.” Though it is unsettling, the viewer constantly attempts to create a narrative for the disembodied figure looming before him. Bhabha’s work is universal in its quest to both present the idea of human suffering and to demand that we learn and move forward from it.

Harry Shearer, The Silent Echo Chamber

Another exciting exhibition was The Silent Echo Chamber from 2008 by Harry Shearer. Best known as a writer for SNL, the voice of 12 characters in The Simpsons, and 1984’s cult movie, This is Spinal Tap, Shearer is also an artist. The work at the Aldrich is a nine channel looped video installation which captures on film famous people, in this case politicians and media personalities, in the moments before they go live on satellite feeds. Their hair and makeup done, the lights shining, they are ready to smile for the camera and put on their public persona. But in those precious moments before that occurs which can take 10-20 minutes, we see Obama reading the paper, Joe Biden shoveling food into his mouth and John McCain barely blinking as he stares at the camera. The thing I found most fascinating was the lack of interaction between the newsfolk. During election coverage, Brian Williams jokes with the crew while Tom Brokaw sits stoically–no interaction takes place between them. Diane Sawyer, Charlie Gibson, and George Stephanopoulos act as if they had never met, sitting for over 10 minutes without any talk. Stephanopoulos’s body language is very telling when he turns his body away from the other two at one point, hand covering his face. Is Charlie Gibson that bad a guy? If one takes the time to watch, this footage is a fascinating study of the human. Really a cool idea and hearing Harry Shearer speak about the work gave it even more depth and meaning.

Ben Weiner, The Great New Wave, 2007

Full Circle: Ten Years of Radius highlights fourteen artists who have at one time or another been part of the artist development program, Radius, that the Aldrich has presented. The artists whose work has been selected for the anniversary exhibition are: Kelly Bigelow Becerra (Bridgeport, CT), Jaclyn Conley (Brooklyn, NY), Paul Favello (West Haven, CT), Robert Federico (Mahopac, NY ), Beth Gilfilen (Jersey City, NJ), Jim Hett (Darien, CT), Bryan Jones (New Haven, CT), Nathan Lewis (New Haven, CT), Christopher Mir (Hamden, CT), Mari Ogihara (Mamaroneck, NY), Alyse Rosner (Westport, CT), Joseph Smolinski (New Haven, CT), Thuan Vu (Hamden, CT), and Benjamin Weiner (Long Island City, NY). My mother owns a small work on paper by Ben Weiner whose work examines in detail products like hair gel and shiny jewelry. It is beautiful in the fact that it captures the surface of those materials and it is otherwordly in the fact that he renders these objects close up in minute detail so that often the viewer may not know what he/she is viewing. I had the pleasure of speaking with Ben and he was very nice. He explained that he is moving on to video art, using some of the same imagery, he hopes to show gel melting or freezing as a small representation of what is happening globally to our environment. I can’t wait to see it. Some neat stuff on view.

Peggy Preheim, Miss America, 2004

“Little Black Book” is the title of the Peggy Preheim exhibition which shows many of her intricate, minute graphite works on paper as well as ceramic sculptures encased in fragile beakers and glass jars. Her work is all figurative and delicate exploring themes such as memory, sexuality and the experiences one has in his/her development from childhood to adulthood. I would describe the works as precious. The exhibition takes a long time to get through if one devotes the necessary time to view the drawings which often require a magnifying glass to see but the beauty of the works as a whole as well as the beauty of the exquisite craft is well worth the time invested. It was like finding a treasure trove of photos and objects in grandma’s attic.

Kwang-Young Chun, 2008, from Aggregation Series

There is also a freestanding sculpture on view that is the largest one the artist, Kwang-Young Chun has ever created. I wrote about this artist a couple of months ago. He is the one who uses mulberry wrapped styrofoam to create lunar looking works. This work is impressive but I was more fascinated by artists whose work I was not familiar with.

Also on view were large abstract paintings with a great deal of movement and color by Karen Davie. I enjoyed reading the pamphlet about them more than actually viewing the works at the museum. Her ideas behind the creation of the work are interesting, but the work itself did nothing for me.

Keep warm by visiting museums and galleries during our cold spell. :)