On View: The Metropolitan Museum of Art / 9-1-12

A museum's permanent collection is a direct representation of the message that museum uses to promote itself. The permanent collection is an ever-changing, growing thing. Visitors begin to have favorites or notice when a piece has been switched out. Even when there are no special exhibitions on view, the permanent collection remains. 




















In Like a Lion, Out Like a Lamb

March was a busy month (art-wise) for me. I attended my first Armory Show (opening night at that) & visited a lot of new exhibitions. More in-depth posts to follow, for now enjoy my photos.

Checking in at The Armory Show

Sara & I & my red pants
The booth for the David Zwirner gallery. Very meta.
Nate Lowman, an artist in MoMA's collection, turned a membership email into a painting. My job is now art!
Came with high hopes, left with mixed feelings
Stand out piece from the New Museum's show by Adrian Villar Rojas
Degas at the Met
Mirrors at the Brooklyn Museum 
Keith Haring at Brooklyn Museum


Cindy Sherman | MoMA

Cindy Sherman opened at MoMA this Sunday & last Tuesday I was able to attend the opening reception. This exhibition has been generating a lot of buzz & the opening was well attended. 
I didn't think I was familiar with Sherman's work until I looked her up & came across her "Untitled Film Stills" series. These are a series of black & white photographs shot to resemble stills from films. The images were taken between 1977 to 1980, but reflect films shot in the 1950s and 60s. In these photos, Sherman takes the idea of the female character in film & pushes it further. She is the typical damsel in distress, the jealous housewife, or the shy yet sweet girl next door. Each photo captures a different character & a different emotion. Even in these early photos, Sherman is able to alter her appearance & change her personality enough so you don't think you've been seeing the same woman over & over. I like how this series acts as portraits of the roles women play on film, elevating them from objects of desire into flesh & blood figures that have lives beyond what the film shows.  


The entire series is on view within the second gallery of the exhibition--I need to revisit them since it was so crowded during the opening. Below are some of my favorites, taken from MoMA's exhibition site:


Untitled Film Still 51, 1979
Untitled Film Still 57, 1980
Untitled Film Still 59, 1980
Untitled Film Still 63, 1980


I feel the exhibition gives a nice overview of Cindy Sherman's work & makes effort to highlight her earlier work, so viewers can see how she has developed over time (pun not intended). Enjoy some of my photos of the opening below:


Entrance to the exhibition; the font changes every few seconds

Untitled Film Stills
Untitled Film Stills
Untitled #489, 1976. Read more here

Recent

I've been pretty terrible at keeping this place alive. Excuses aside, I'm making a vow to update more. So here are somethings of interest:




  • Last week I visited the Met's new galleries of Islamic Art. However, since I was camera-less, you can enjoy this old picture that was the background on my blackberry. I highly recommend visiting the new galleries--I enjoyed seeing something new at the Met & the illustrated manuscripts are amazing.


  • I never was much of a gallery go-er, but that's starting to change. On my last outing I went to David Zwirner to see On Kawara's date paintings. I want to do a more in-depth post about On Kawara's work, so for now I'll just post this one photo. 
  • Still working on this series, expect a post soon
  • Since I am so good at keeping this updated I started another tumblr: thepoint&theline. Follow it for more art. Also follow my regular tumblr teeth&things if you're up for it.




Sanford Biggers | Sweet Funk: An Introspective

I recently wrote a piece for Gnome Magazine on Sanford Bigger's show, Sweet Funk: An Introspective, at the Brooklyn Museum. I went to visit the exhibition at the end of October & was given permission to photograph pieces in the exhibit. I wanted to wait until the piece was published to share these images.

This was the first time I was introduced to Bigger's work. Through his work he tries to reclaim & reconfigure images & themes associated with Black culture. This is evident in his usage of the wide mouth grin, which alludes to black face, or trees, which speak to the history of lynching. Other themes, such as jazz music & the piano, speak more about the contributions African-Americans have made throughout history. Sweet Funk is made up of nine sculptural installations, with a focus on Blossom (2007), which the museum recently purchased. Please read my piece to learn more!



Blossom (2007)

Lotus (2007)

Kalimba II (2002)

Still from Cheshire (2007)

Calenda (Big Ass Bang!) (2004)








Lee Ufan: Marking Infinity | Guggenheim Museum

Scan of the Guggenheim's exhibition brochure

Within the Guggenheim’s text about this exhibition, Lee Ufan is described as an artist, a poet, & a philosopher. These can seem like lofty terms, but I was convinced that Ufan shows the qualities of each within his work. Marking Infinity was Ufan’s first retrospective in a North American museum, & was the first time I was introduced to his work. The exhibition was organized by theme & series, giving insight to Ufan’s practice.

Ufan’s sculptures rely on the relationship between space & objects. Space related to physical features, such as the walls of the Guggenheim, but it also meant the space that occurred between the materials in Ufan’s work. Many of his sculptures pair natural & man-made materials together. The piece, Relatum—silence b is composed of a stone placed before a sheet of metal that leans against the gallery wall. It felt as if the stone was confronting the metal, or standing before it in order to understand it. Ufan did not set out to evoke certain emotions from his viewers—instead he let the objects appear as they are. In this setting, the objects interact with the elements in the gallery: light, air, & shadows. 

Relatum—silence b, 2008. Via The Guggenheim
 
I instantly thought of the word dialogue, relating to how the objects appear to be having a conversation. I use this in the abstract sense, but the term also lends itself to a series of paintings by Ufan. Even while working through different mediums, Ufan has been able to carry over certain themes, gestures & vocabulary. 


From Point, 1975. Via The Guggenheim
The first set of paintings came from Ufan’s From Point series, which focused on painting as action & process. Known for working within a repetitive nature, in this series Ufan made continuous points on a canvas until there was no ink left on his brush. These points mark the passing of time—another record of the physical nature of painting. The painting represents the action & process of painting--it is the direct result. The brush-marks are a record of the action—they show the direction, force, & flow of the paint. On a personal level, the painting From Point, 1975 reminded me of my Erasure Series (Up North it Begins to Snow) from my Senior Thesis.

Via The Guggenheim

A similar technique was applied in the From Line series. These paintings begin with the idea explored in From Point, but move away from the process of making art toward a focus on the finished painting—toward the outcome & the lines' ability to move. Ufan became concerned with the space of the canvas & how brush-marks occupied that space. In these paintings, Ufan began making his lines disfigured & applied all over the surface of the painting. The paintings in From Winds show his final transition.

From Line, 1980. Via The Guggenheim

Further up the ramp we are introduced to newer works in the Relatum series. Again Ufan interweaves natural & man-made materials—this time making work that played with the properties of the materials. In one sculpture, pieces of metal have been embedded in a block of wool. Both wool & metal have distinct textures, but when placed together, the object takes on qualities of both. The metal appears weightless within the wool, & the wool appears dense & thick. These were shown in front of paintings from his Correspondence series—the importance between occupied & blank space became repeating grey marks that took up space but also created it & avoided it. These are the predecessors to the Dialogue series.

Via The Guggeneheim



The Dialogue paintings—created with large flat brushes & grey paint—were my favorite series within the retrospective. The wall text introducing these paintings touched on Ufan’s usage of the color grey: the color represents “a vague, ephemeral & uncertain world.” The paintings are large, bearing minimal marks from Ufan. They show past influence from his From Point & From Line series: individual marks that use the entire amount of paint on the brush which have been placed on the canvas according to how they interact with the available space. The brush-marks become the subject of the work, its entire composition, & represent everything Ufan has worked towards in his craft. Again we think of process & the passing of time, but in a larger context. The scale of the paintings & their placement within the final gallery create a reflective mood. The marks almost feel fabricated, as if silk-screened & bear no trace of Ufan’s hand. Three Dialogue paintings were created on the walls of the museum--a triptych of grey marks that created a space which interacted with the properties available on-site & that left the experience to the viewer to interpret. 

Dialogue, 2007. Via The Guggenheim

Dialogue--space, 2009/11. Via The Guggenheim



August 4th

Cy Twombly, Untitled, 1970
Leandro Katz, The Lunar Alphabet I, 1978
Lunar Sentence I



Yoko Ono
Felix Gonzalez-Torres
I've been thinking (again) about art & language & how they interact--how a painting can involve words & a poem or statement can involve the visual. I've been thinking but I haven't been doing much else. That needs to change.

Poem (À la recherche de Gertrude Stein) - Frank O'Hara

When I am feeling depressed and anxious and sullen
all you have to do is take your clothes off
and all is wiped away revealing life’s tenderness
that we are flesh and breathe and are near us
as you are really as you are I become as I
really am alive and knowing vaguely what is
and what is important to me above the intrusions
of incident and accidental relationships
which have nothing to do with my life

when I am in your presence I feel life is strong
and will defeat all its enemies and all of mine
and all of yours and yours in you and mine in me
sick logic and feeble reasoning are cured
by the perfect symmetry of your arms and legs
spread out making an eternal circle together
creating a golden pillar beside the Atlantic
the faint line of hair dividing your torso
gives my mind rest and emotions their release
into the infinite air where since once we are
together we always will be in this life come what may

Robert Mapplethorpe

The High Museum of Art - Atlanta, GA

I spent a few days in Atlanta last month & went to see the High Museum of Art with my mother. The High Museum is made up of three buildings which house different parts of the museum’s collection along with special exhibitions. My mother & I saw the Henri Cartier-Bresson photo exhibition (which I missed at MoMA last year), a Toulouse-Lautrec show, the modern/contemporary collection, the African Collection, & the prints & drawings gallery. There is a fantastic Alexander Calder mobile on the lawn adjacent to the museum that can be viewed from the road. We went on a grey day but in my mind that added to the experience. The buildings were very modern and open, and the Robinson Atrium made me a bit homesick for the Guggenheim.

My mom & an Ellsworth Kelly

Ellsworth Kelly




"Para III", Morris Louis

Me


The Calder Mobile. Found here