Ken Price's "naturally erotic forms"

Clay sculpture glazed or painted in a melange of color. While they may be "naturally erotic forms," they remain firmly abstract. I found the colors of the speckled surface and the undulating curves much more playful and visually interesting than his flat drawings and prints on the wall.

The marbled surface of this reminds me ancient Roman pottery, but the colors are closer to neon and the material effect plasticy. This surreal disconnect and the lumpy shapes creates a disquieting secondary reaction to what seems innocent enough at first glance.

Alighiero Boetti’s World-weaving at MoMA

Detail, Tutto (Everything)

Check out my piece on Alighiero Boetti’s World-weaving at MoMA over on Escape Into Life. Boetti’s large woven and embroidered tapestries are the showstoppers of the Alighiero Boetti: Game Plan exhibition, and they have a fascinating history involving the artist's time in Afghanistan.

F-111

F-111 is a ginormous billboard of a painting Pop artist James Rosenquist made in the 60s. On view now at MoMA as it was originally displayed in the Leo Castelli gallery, its aluminum panels wrap around the four walls.

Having seen the work before hanging full length on one wall, I was more than a little surprised to see it crumpled up like this. I think it prefer it all stretched out--it struck me as more monumental that way. What do you think?

RGB Colorspace Atlas and Mantis Shrimp

RGB Colorspace Atlas, Volume 2 (2011)

As part of Ecstatic Alphabets, MoMA has a set Tauba Auerbach's colorful books on view. These three thick objects display every color the human eye can see in a three-dimensional, ordered way. The museum plaque probably describes the project best:

"Human eyes typically have three types of color receptors on their retinas, each sensitive to a different range of wavelengths of light. The colors associated with these wavelengths are approximately red, green, and blue. Because there are three types of color receptors, it is possible to map the visible spectrum in a three-dimensional spatial model by assigning red, green, and blue each to a dimension. It is then possible to outline a cube in this space, where the values of red, green, and blue are visible on a gradient scale of 0 - 100% in their respective dimensions. These gradients combine to create the RGB color space cube, a volume in which any color can be located by a set of three coordinates. RGB Colorspace Atlas, both a sculptural object and spatialization of color, consists of three books. Each volume contains the entire visible spectrum mapped out over 3,632 pages, representing the RGB cube sliced in a different direction: vertically, horizontally, and from front to back."

Of course, the volumes at MoMA were behind glass cases, so no one can flip through them. This video helps you imagine it though: 

Radiolab recently did a fascinating episode on color (bringing in Victoria Finlay, whose book I wrote about, as a guest). As the Auerbach blurb notes, human eyes typically have three types of color receptors (although a few women may have four through a quirk of genetics). However, some animals have many more--and thus see many more wavelengths, and colors, than we can imagine. The technicolor mantis shrimp has 16 kinds of color receptors. Can you imagine what the world looks like to it? Or, for that matter, what an attempt at spatial representation of its color spectrum would look like?

For more about woman with four kinds of color receptors, the discovery of color, whether color existed in the same way to Homer and the ancient Greeks, and much more, I highly recommend the Radiolab episode.

Cindy Sherman: Clothes Make the Woman

Still from Doll Clothes, 1975

Check out my new essay on the Cindy Sherman retrospective at MoMA up over on Escape Into Life. The big question: Do you find the path not taken in her work as tantalizing as I do?

Lady Rosa of MoMA

Lady Rosa of Luxembourg, Sanja Iveković

God, I love the atrium at MoMA. Sure, it's not where Ivekovic originally intended her sculpture Lady Rosa of Luxembourg to stand. But where else can you put a 69-foot obelisk?

Aside from in Luxembourg that is. More about the exhibition Sweet Violence here and about Lady Rosa here.

Installation view, Luxembourg, 2001

Cy Twombly's Sculptures (Cont.), at MoMA

Installation View

Continuing from the small exhibition of Twombly sculptures at the Art Insitute, MoMA has dedicated a small space to showing the late artist's sculptures as well, which (joy!) I saw over the weekend. Perhaps simply in relief to the garishly colorful, incredibly large deKooning exhibition, looking at these seven white constructions felt like an oasis of calm.

Untitled (Jupiter Island), 1992. Wood, plaster, plastic leaves, wire, cloth, sand, and paint.

I'm not sure how clear it is in these photos, but the white stood out beautifully from the blue night outside the window. The roughness of the bottom contrasts with the smooth vertical white shape with its unexpected dip at the top.

Untitled (Funerary Box for a Lime Green Python). 1954. Wood, palm leaf fans, house paint, cloth, and wire.

The delicacy of the fans make this my favorite of these works. It's the earliest sculpture shown, and the fanciful description he gives the title disappears in most of his later works.

Untitled (Lexington), 2005. Plaster, paint, wood, cardboard, metal, paper, cloth, twine, and pencil

Although I say they are white, in his later works Twombly began adding a dash of bright color. Here the very tip is a bright pink. I love the balancing act implied by the varying degrees of narrowness of the different objects.

Untitled (Lexington) from a different angle.

Cy Twombley: Selected Examples

Originally published Sunday, March 1 2009 and reblogged in honor of the artist's death today at 83.

A Progression Into Chaos

Beautiful images for your Sunday morning. Twombly's work is something I never tire of, even if seeing these images on a screen really takes away from their painterly quality and large size. Cy Twombly is one of my favorite contemporary artists, and if they would bring Le Quattro Stagione, his quartet of paintings, back to the atrium of MoMA, I would be quite happy.

Kline & Motherwell

How is it that I knew and loved Franz Kline, but MoMA's Abstract Expressionist New York was the first time I really appreciated Robert Motherwell?

New York, Franz Kline

No. 7, Franz Kline

Zinc Doors, Franz Kline

 I still have a lot of art historical catching up to do. This whole time it's as if Robert Motherwell was waiting in the wings for me, so to speak.

Elegy 57, Robert Motherwell

Elegy to the Spanish Republic, Robert Motherwell

Beside the Sea, Robert Motherwell

Beside the Sea, above, is a new favorite of mine. Clearly, I love the stark palette with the bold, expressive brushstrokes. Both artist's work vary much more than what I'm showing here. Yet the similarity is still distinct, and belies some of the difference that the exhibition stresses.

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The Big Picture: Abstract Expressionist NY at MoMA

One: Number 31, 1950, Jackson Pollock

Abstract Expressionist New York at MoMA is a large show, and I only had time to see 'The Big Picture,' a painting and sculpture-centric takeover of MoMA's 4th Floor. Of course, the typically large Abstract Expressionist canvases, bursting with color, are difficult to hang next to each other even when from the same artist. Rather than playing off each other, they often seem strangled. Jackson Pollock's One: Number 31 was an exception; this enormous canvas could hold its own in a brawl with just about any work of the era.

Personage with Yellow Ochre and White, Robert Motherwell

MoMA has a treasure trove of Abstract Expressionist pieces, so its great to see them all out. The exhibition wasn't the art history lesson I had hoped to get from it, showing rooms of individual artists instead of making comparisons. Maybe that's for the better; it's rather a lot to take in as it is. Yet it felt lackluster and unfocused compared to some of the excellent shows MoMA has put on recently (Marina Abramovic, William Kentridge). On the other hand, this focus on artists made cherry-picking favorites easy enough: Mark Rothko, Franz Kline, Robert Motherwell, Barnett Newman. Swoon

No.5 / No. 22, Mark Rothko

Chief, Franz Kline

Two Edges, Barnett Newman

I guess the conclusion is: there's some fantastic art up on the walls of MoMA right now, but you can't see it very well.

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Go See: Pipilotti Rist at Luhring Augustine

It was in my plans even before I read this review of the show to go see the Pipilotti Rist, just because her video installation Pour Your Body Out in the atrium of MoMA was so lush and engrossing. I didn't even know she has made a chandelier of underwear. (pictured above)

Now it's been moved to top priority. : )

Seville, Spain. 1933

A favorite from Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Modern Century at MoMA.

William Kentridge: Five Themes at MoMA

You will have heard, or will read upon entering, that William Kentridge: Five Themes shows the South African artist dealing with themes of apartheid prominently in his work. This bland statement hardly explains or does justice to the artist's poetic and humane explorations of aparthied in South Africa, nor does it encompass his whole oervre. The sobering themes in his work are mediated through dreamy moments that are compelling without being overwhelming.

The beginning two themes show the explorations of apartheid that the artist is renowned for, as well as the dexterity with which he turns the most basic video techniques into a moving storyline. The first two videos show the use of silhouettes traveling across a landscape, immediately recalling Kara Walker's work, with its similar content based upon slavery in the US, to mind. Kentridge's work is not angry or jarring, but requited resigned and saddened by history, as his figures plod on.

"I believe that in the indeterminacy of drawing--the contingent way that images arrive in the work--lies some kind of model of how we live our lives. The activity of drawing is a way of trying to understand who we are and how we operate in the world."

Video, with its demands for narrative, sound, and movement, is complex and the artist handles it with an apparent simplicity and hand-made feel that if touching. The artist works in black charcoal on white paper, smudging his way from one drawing to the next to create an illusion of movement. This time consuming process constantly shows a trace of what was, which becomes emotionally affecting and markedly individual. Sparse color and apt music lends a poignancy to the troubled episodes of the protagonists. Rather than slick production techniques, the humble use of video technology lends authenticity and personalization to the images.



Kentridge is like a lyric short story writer, with a Surrealist touch and Absurdist undertone. The video series that follows the characters of Soho Eckstein, Mrs. Eckstien, and Felix Teitlebaum through South African life in the last years of apartheid put a human face on a larger suffering. Symbolic details of fish and telephones gain meaning as you proceed through the projection rooms. The artist refuse to plan his storylines, relying on the spontaneity of the process to see him through, and that saves him from being pedantic or overly pointed. Instead, there is a flow of ideas that seem like a dream of consciousness, a consciousness of guilt and overwhelming pain and struggle. The lonely, melancholy atmosphere is utterly absorbing as the charcoal marks on the page flow and burst in emotional turmoil.

The artist at his best in his animations, but less so in the drawings he makes them from. The drawings on the whole are unmoving, and less skilled than his work in action. Glancing at them on your way into the darkened theatres is enough. Then take a seat and get comfortable, for this work is not meant to be rushed.


The middle room, the third theme is the studio, shows a series of seven ongoing film fragments on all sides. Take a seat on the bench and be prepared to swivel your head for a good look. These short videos feature Kentridge himself in the starring role as artist hero and conjurer. At their best they are touching studies of the creative process, and at their worst, convey an image of Kentridge as a magician performing cheap tricks like playing the film backwards.

"Walking, thinking, stalking the image, Many of the hours spent in the studio are hours of walking, pacing back and forth across the space gathering the energy, the clarity to make the first mark...It is as if before the work can begin (the visible, finished work of the drawing, film, or sculpture) a different, invisible work must be done."

The final two sections are dedicated to theatrical performances he has designed. The first is the Black Box that Kentridge derived from the stage set he did for a production of Mozart's opera The Magic Flute. If the preceding room gave the impression of the artist's wizardry, then this confirms it. In a darkened room on the hour, a miniature stage on a box with moving doors and objects acting in tandem with projected light and cutouts, the tale of magic and dominance is clearly unfolding under a master's hand. It is engrossing, even if the mechanics never quite fade into the suspension of disbelief. The last room is designated to his work designing The Nose for the Metropolitan Opera, and here, much as with Kentridge's drawings, one feels the remains are just that: remainders of what might indeed be a spectacular visual feast in action. I wish I had the chance to see it.

On view at MoMA through May 17. If you cannot visit the museum, YouTube has an excellent selection of the artist's films and there are two interview with the artist here and here. Kentridge was also a focus of Art:21's Season Five Episode Compassion.

Joie de vivre & Matisse

The Dance, 1909, Henri Matisse


I'm in an inexplicably good mood this morning. These dancers of Matisse came to mind. While I have seen the work at MoMA, I never took especial notice of it. I'm not sure why my mind landed on this, but it is indeed a joyful work. And the colors!

If you're in need of a color surge to wake you up, may I recommend googling images of Matisse?

Something Weird This Way Comes

Ah, love that title. It's from my new article on the Tim Burton at MoMA exhibition up on Blogcritics. To wit:

It certainly must feel strange for an isolated kid from the suburbs of California to have hundreds of his drawings and objects ensconced in an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. No less so because he is known for his films rather than his drawings. Yet if the opening crowds are anything to judge by, most museum-goers are nothing but thrilled to see this exhaustive exhibition of 700+ works related to Tim Burton's career. The crowds are right, for the same aesthetic binds Burton's early work to his later films.

Face the crowds you must, if you want to wander through the strange byproducts of Burton's imaginative mind. MoMA created a great entrance: through the mouth of a monster you enter a black and white striped hall lined with TVs playing a series of Stainboy animations. Then you enter a dark room where a carousel turns to creepy carnival music and glow-in-the-dark paintings on black velvet stare out at you. Next you enter the well-lit, white-walled galleries of MoMA – but even here things don't return to normalcy. The walls are filled with hundreds of sketches of monsters and people on everything from canvas to cocktail napkins.

Rest here.

And a happy weird Tuesday to you all.




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Tim Burton at MoMA Opens

So you can expect the crowd to be double the size of the one pictured above, of people waiting for the Tim Burton book signing from Wednesday. From what I saw over the weekend, this is going to be a very popular exhibition.

Tim Burton did this great ad for his show at MoMA (although I'm a little unsure where MoMA would advertise). Luckily it's up through April, so if you want to see it you can wait until the crowds die down a little.

Exhibition entrance

Picking Favorites from Bauhaus at MoMA

The images below are some of my favorites from the Bauhaus: Workshops for Modernity exhibition at MoMA on view through Jan 25, 2010.

Joseph Albers of left: Glass in Grid, Upward, Skyscraper on Transparent Yellow, Paul Klee on right: Angler, The Twittering Machine, Mask of Fear

While this informative exhibition will lead you through the history of the Bauhaus school from 1919 to 1933, the infighting of school leaders and teaching system didn't interest me quite as much as work of some of those who studied or worked at the school. The work of two pupils/teachers of Bauhaus on view are shown above: Joseph Albers and Paul Klee.

Albers produced the images on the left, a series of glass grids. These jpegs can't do justice to the quality of the glass and how it works with the color, but these are really beautiful pieces. The first is truly stunning: ends of bottles and other shards are wrapped into a grid with black wires. For a really amazing view of a similar piece, check this out. Later, Albers perfected a sandblasted method that created the sharp, flat later pieces seen below.

Klee, whose images are to the right, was a teacher at Bauhaus. These watercolors of Klee's were partially a way for him to work out color. Color theory was a large part of the Bauhaus curriculum, and important for both artists, although it appears more clearly in Alber's work here. What I think is fascinating about looking at the work of these two influential artists next to each other, in conjunction with the school they both taught at, is the very different work they produced. Neither artist's work fits with the image of Bauhaus I had going into the exhibition, which especially early on espoused a surprising spirituality and never truly lost its forward-looking optimism.

Bauhaus as a style has come to mean something quite different than the competing aesthetics and theories produced at the time suggests. This thorough MoMA exhibition, comprised of hundreds of objects, suggests the vibrant life of the school, which so hopefully produced objects for the future. More about the exhibition from the New York Times here.

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Experiment: Successful

My bench.

Or at least I was happy with the result of my slow art "experiment"- 30 minutes staring at one painting. I poked around the museum a bit, and eventually chose one of Monet's Water Lillies. This was mainly because it had the cushiest bench in front of it. So I sat in the middle, put on some music to drown out distracting conversations, and looked.


And looked.

And looked.

It was actually quite interesting. I pondered over how Monet layered the paint and what his method of working was like. I tried to imagine what time of day he painted at. I've been to Giverny, and I tried to imagine him on that dark green Japanese bridge staring right down at the water. He really jams the water right up in your face, and without any kind of focal point. I grew to love the yellow at the edges, and to dislike the central purple area toward the right (it doesn't recede as I felt it should).

What I really loved about the whole experience was how peaceful it felt, as if I had all the time in the world. It was like meditating, except a hundred times easier because I had something to look at. The time went surprisingly quickly. I realized I should do this more often, and not just with art.

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