Radcliffe Bailey's Ships and Sea

In the Garden, 2008

Atlanta has this interesting past that makes you want to dig deeper and understand what was once there, even though it may be covered...Sherman burnt down the city. They say when you want to get rid of something, you burn it, but you don’t really get rid of it. I can look out my back door and see a lot -- Radcliffe Bailey via NY Times

Radcliffe Bailey's work Seven Steps, above, was on view at the Georgia Museum of Art when I went recently, and I love the layered colors and use of materials offset by the sepia photograph. It was recently part of an exhibition at the High Museum in Atalanta that I just missed, Radcliffe Bailey: Memory as Medicine, showcasing the Atlanta-based artist's work on its biggest level yet. Bailey uses a variety of materials to explore history both personal and collective, and he engages memory as a device to encourage healing through art.

Tricky, 2008

Bailey is maybe better know for a layering of imagery, culturally resonant materials, and text that began when he was given some old family photographs to work with. But looking at the images from the exhibition, I was really drawn to some of his more sculptural pieces, like Tricky, above. A textured black surface juxtaposed with the jaunty tilt of the hat encase a slave ship. In The Antelope, he again presents a black ship, this time encased in glass like a fossil and sailing over white cloth/paper. 

The Antelope, 2010

The large installation Windward Coast creates a rolling ocean of piano keys harvested from some 400 pianos, suggesting the oceans traversed in the slave trade and in their midst a lone black head, the same glittery texture as the ship in Tricky, appears.

Detail view of Windward Coast

The artist does not consider his work to be solely dark or only about slavery however (as you might not realize by the pieces I'm showing here). Regarding Windward Coast, he told the New York Times, “I think about all the music that was probably played on those keys. An ocean is something that divides people. Music is something that connects people. Duke Ellington or Thelonious Monk -- it’s a different sound that takes you somewhere else. It’s also about being at peace.”

Installation View, Memory as Medicine at the High Museum

More about the exhibition here and images of the artist's work here.

Regional Favorites from the Georgia Museum of Art

Horizons, Steinunn Þórarinsdóttir

My hometown, Athens, Georgia, doesn't always change much, but when I visited recently the Georgia Museum of Art was showing off its new renovation, which featured an extensive addition to show more of the permanent collection.  It's a beautiful renovation in general and it was fantastic to see the new galleries showing so much of the permanent collection. 

There is also a new sculpture garden, currently filled with bronze sculptures by Icelandic artist Steinunn Þórarinsdóttir (don't ask me how to pronounce that.) However, one of the noticeable features of the permanent collections was a regional focus in the works. It felt like home--and it also felt refreshingly different from so much of the work I see here in New York.

Some of my favorites:

Tallulah Falls, 1841, George Cooke

My Forebearers Were Pioneers, 1939, Philip Evergood

The White House, 1945, Georges Schreiber

Seven Steps, 1994, Radcliffe Bailey

Detail, Seven Steps

Georgia II, 2008, Leo Twiggs

American Favorites from the Art Institute

Woman (Elevation), 1927, Bronze, Gaston Lachaise in front of A Vision, 1925, Joseph Stella

Cow's Skull with a Calico Rose, 1931, Georgia O'Keefe

Bouy, 1941, Peter Blume

Head of Pavlova, 1924, Malvina Hoffman

ArtPrize: A 'Radically Open' Taste Test

If you didn't follow the link to ArtPrize at the end of my post yesterday, don't worry. Because if high-handed art-ad warfare deserves a post, so does a 'radically-open' art competition with the biggest prize in the world ($25,000 for first place) whose fate will be decided this coming October 1.

I've mentioned before how American taste and critical opinion can go separate ways (for example, see post on Andrew Wyeth and Norman Rockwell)--I can't wait to see if that proves to be the case with Artprize.

Will some hot shot of the Whitney Biennial, an art fair that "characterizes the state of American art today," win? Or perhaps an older, half-forgotten artist? Will it be a traditional oil painting, or a minamalist poly-resin casting containing nothingness? I feel like this is a litmus test for what America considers beautiful. What will it say about American's ideas of beauty? When I consider the opinions of the various people I know, I'm really not sure how to answer that question. (The New York Times mockingly called it 'Art Idol.' )

ArtPrize is as much a social experiment as an art contest. Venues are provided by volunteers and matched with entrants. Entrants are encouraged to stay for the duration of the fair to promote their work. Voting can be done only by people who visit the fair, which is being hosted in Grand Rapids, MI. (The prize is funded by a Michigan politician) Grand Rapids might seem out of the way, but that $25,000 prize speaks pretty loudly. In fact, it screams "Pay Attention To Me."

But what will the ArtPrize and its voting methods reflect about the state of populist American taste? I think the winner could be as follows:

1. appeals to the lowest common denominator
2. the prettiest
3. the best social networker
4. the next Leonardo da Vinci, who has been hiding inside a cave in Grand Rapids
5. a perfectly reputable, established good artist with credentials*

*That would be the most unintersting result.

American Populists: Andrew Wyeth and Norman Rockwell

Andrew Wyeth, Benny's Scarecrow

The painter Andrew Wyeth died last Friday. In a way, he was a most unpopular populist. As the New York Times describes here, his main value to most art historians was that he provided an alternative to Modernism in the 1940s and 50s. Not quite high praise. The American public, the part that didn't go in for Modernism, tended to be much fonder of Wyeth's realistic images.

His form of realism seems to be what endears him to the common man, placing him in the class of Americana with Norman Rockwell. A spiritual opposite of Norman Rockwell, however, his negativity and earthiness depict another side of America's identity. His subject matter is rural and humble; his style accessible, that is to say, it looks like real objects. His excellently composed scenes have an almost magical realism, but ultimately, I find them a little dull.

Andrew Wyeth, Christina's Field

His most famous painting, above, is of a woman in his community who was crippled and pulled herself through fields rather than use a wheelchair. Wyeth admired her independence and determination. In this and much of his work, he overlays the American landscape with foreboding atmosphere and Puritanical ethos. Whereas Wyeth seems like the last of the Puritans, Rockwell's work shows a New American optimism.

Norman Rockwell, The Roadblock

Is it fair to say Wyeth represents an older, Puritan ethos and Rockwell represents the exuberant America coming out of WWII?

Who is more American?