Weekend museum visit...

Last weekend found my wife, our sons and me at the Montclair Art Museum in Montclair, NJ. This is a little bit of a project that we have on the side that involves visiting all of New Jersey’s museums (can be done over a small part of one’s lifetime whereas a similar undertaking for the state of New York would require several lifetimes)… Montclair Art Museum was not the greatest considering standards set by museums like Newark or Rutgers but they did have some art that did stand out from the usual gilt edged period stuff that gathers dust at a lot of our state museums. Of course, in addition, the already high entrance fees for such a small museum did not make much sense either… They did have a fairly extensive superheroes exhibit that featured drawings for comics and collages as preparation for comic book designs that would definitively catch the interest of print illustrators. I was not very much into that kind of stuff, but some superhero life size mockups had our three year old son salivating and both of us tried imitating Spiderman deploying his extensive webbing to the bemused look of the museum security guards.

Some pictures from the weekend…

Louise Nevelson (1899 - 1988), Black Zag A, 1968, Wood, found objects, pigment, plastic laminate.
Louise Berliawsky Nevelson was a Ukrainian-born American artist. She was known for abstract expressionist sculpture that primarily featured box like objects grouped together to explore form and three dimensional space. She primarily worked from found objects and everyday discards.
In her words:”When you put together things that other people have thrown out, you’re really bringing them to life – a spiritual life that surpasses the life for which they were originally created."
Note: Her work reminded me strongly of the work of another artist that I have the distinct pleasure of knowing online: Corrine Bayraktaroglu, whose artwork that featured a homage to Louise’s work is here. Corrine's entire portfolio here.

Richard La Barre Goodwin (1840 - 1910), String of Game Birds, ca. 1892, Oil on canvas.
His work is distinctive for his many subjects that feature cabin doors decorated with hunting and other outdoor equipment. Trompe d'oeil in nature, his work really startled us for its simplicity, realism and the life of after lived animal lives

William Couper (1853 - 1942), Crown for the Prince, 1896, Marble

I know that marble sculptures is not going to turn any heads, but William Couper's sculpture of this Greek maiden wreathing an olive crown for an Olympian victor is timeless as well as symptomatic of most of the 'class based' art' that was prevalent around the end of the nineteenth century.

Chakaia Booker, rubber tires and stainless steel.

My personal favorite piece from the show. She slices, twists, strips, and rivets rubber and radials to create exaggerated textures, prickled edges, and torqued forms. The resulting sculpture had a strange life of its own, pulsing behind the façade of dirty old rubber tires and radials. She was fantastic.

Herbert Ferber (1906 - 1991), Jay III, 1970, Bronze.

He was an Abstract expressionist sculptor and dentist. He actively practiced dentistry between 1930 and 1950. His best-known sculptures are open, hollow forms in soldered and welded metal and also roofed sculptures ― some parts of which hung from the ceiling while other parts rose from the floor.

Alan Houser (1914 - 1994), Earth Mother, Bronze, 1981 (Cast 1986)

George Inness, The Lackawanna Valley, 1855, Oil on canvas.
The Montclair museum has a great collection of that late nineteenth century landscape artist George Inness. Some of the works have been made maudlin by today’s standards by the prevalence of landscape paintings in our malls, but a couple of these stand out for their stunning originality at a time when the Hudson River artists insisted on an almost total detail replication to beauty and the attendant forces of nature that shape it. This artist would have had principles very close to Thoreau (just looking at the artworks and his writings on display there – an ecstasy in the joy of nature and its unity with the material and non-material world).

George Inness, Evening Landscape, 1863, Oil on canvas

At the MoMA last week

I was up at the MoMA last week to pay homage to the drawings of Georges Seurat. The exhibit closes today. Suffice to say, I was struck by the light emanating from his creations made simply by conte crayon on textured paper.

Of course, one could not miss the genius of Lucian Freud and Martin Puryear also on display. Mr. Puryear's work has to be physically seen for one to understand the complexity behind them. Images on the web (however detailed) do not convey the work involved.

Georges Seurat, 'Drawbridge', 1882, Conte’ crayon on paper, 9" X 12"

Georges Seurat, 'A woman fishing', 1883, Conte' crayon on paper, 12" X 9"

Martin Puryear, 'Ladder for Booker T. Washington', 1996, Ash and maple, 36' X 22" X 3", Narrows to 1" at the top

Top view of some more Puryear's sculptures


Lucian Freud, 1994, 'Benefits supervisor resting', Oil on canvas, 63" X 59"

This one below seems like a recent addition:

Assume Vivid Astro Focus, 'Wilza', 2003, Archival ink on acetate

I also went around and prayed in front of some evergreen favorites.

Alexander Calder, 'Josephine Baker III', 1927, Steel wire

Jackson Pollock, 1947, 'Full Fathom Five', Oil on canvas with nails, tacks, buttons, key, coins, cigarettes, matches. This was one his first drip paintings later becoming his signature style. The title, suggested by Pollock's neighbor, quotes from Shakespeare’s The Tempest wherein Ariel describes a death by shipwreck:

"Full fathom five thy father lies
Of his bones are coral made
Those are pearls that were his eyes"

Umberto Boccioni, 1913, 'Unique forms of continuity on space', Bronze

Marcel Duchamp, 1912, 'The passage from Virgin to bride', Oil on canvas

John Chamberlain, 1960, Essex, Automobile parts and other metal

Lee Bontecou, 1959, 'Untitled', Welded steel, canvas, black fabric and wire

Leon Ferrari, 1962, 'Untitled (after Rafael Alberti's Sermon of the Blood)', Ink and colored ink on paper

Duane Hanson at Van de Weghe fine art

In retrospect, it was a fairly stupid question, walking into that Chelsea gallery that was showing hyper-realist sculptures (yes, I was thinking Ron Mueck too) and asking the hyper-made up lady there 'Is the show on today or is the gallery closed'? She gave me a look as one would give a cretin who had just crawled in from under the door and went back to looking at her sleek apple computer that seems to be a necessary fixture in galleries and disdainfully ordered 'Look around'. I quietly crept back into my shell and meekly walked around stupefied at the hyperrealism on display here. Duane Hanson's sculptures made of autobody filler and other mixed media seems so real that it is unnerving to stand there looking at the sculptures half thinking that the sculpture might step out and ask "And what is it that makes you want to stare at me so hard, you pervert, you?"

Most of these works executed between 1973 and 1990 were and are classics. Mundane people doing their mundane jobs, so often overlooked for doormats in normal life now in this gallery being stared at and studied with attention by people wondering “Just how did the *&%# did I miss all this expression in ordinary people...?”

Queenie II, 1988, Autobody filler, polychromed in oil, mixed media with accessories, 72” X 40” X 50”

Detail of above

Security Guard, 1990, Autobody filler, polychromed in oil, mixed media with accessories, 72” X 40” X 20”

Self Portrait with model, 1979, Polyvinyl, polychromed in oil, mixed media with accessories, 48” X 75” X 40”

Flea Market Lady, 1990, Autobody filler, polychromed in oil, mixed media with accessories, 50” X 120” X 48”

Old man playing Solitaire, 1973, Polyester resin and fiberglass, polychromed in oil, mixed media with accessories, 50” X 35” X 55”

Delivery Man, 1980, Polyvinyl, polychromed in oil, mixed media with accessories, Lifesize

Judy Fox at PPOW

Queen: "Looking-glass, looking-glass, on the wall,
Who in this land is the fairest of all?"

Mirror: "Thou art fairer than all who are here, lady queen.
But more beautiful still is Snow White, as I ween."

An interesting twist on an all too familiar fairy tale from Grimm is presented at the PPOW gallery by artist Judy Fox titled 'Snow White and the Seven Sins’. I was over there yesterday and was frankly taken in by feelings of a visceral kind that seemed to evoke sexuality, lust and admiration. The artist seems to envelope the onlooker with fertile sexual imagination developed out of casting sculptures in terra cotta and cassein.

The take on the original tale is clear, Snow White lies in state after being poisoned by her queen-mother and is waiting to be revived by the archetypal princely kiss. She is surrounded by the seven dwarfs each one of whom seem to embody one of the original sins. On the snow white sculpture, the detail and the forms evoked were of flesh and the curves did not leave much to ones imagination.

I liked the dwarfs better, developed out of a cunning juxtaposition of the male and female sexual anatomy. Apart from the wide eyed curious stares of people looking to discern where in the sculpture the male appendage ends and the female’s begin, the dwarfs embodied the ease and grace with which Judy Fox has managed to integrate the sexual forms into a seamless whole that leaves one intrigued. On the whole, I liked the show a lot, not just for the vibrant colors on the pottery, but also for the imagery real and imagined that it conveyed.

Judy Fox, 'Snow White', 2007, terra cotta and casein, 8.5" x 58" x 25"

Judy Fox, 'Lust', 2007, terra cotta and casein, 8" x 26" x 15"

Judy Fox, 'Gluttony', 2007, terra cotta and casein, 12" x 25" x 12"

Judy Fox, 'Anger', 2007, terra cotta and casein, 25" x 15" x 11"

Sweet Lord - a gallery visit

Cosimo Cavallaro, ‘My Sweet Lord’, Chocolate, 72" X 72" X 24"

I was over at Chelsea for a quick jaunt and my itinerary included the Proposition. The gallery had a sequel to the originally controversial exhibit that consisted of a life size statue of the nude Jesus made entirely of chocolate. This time the artist has added eight fully clothed saints that flank the naked Jesus. I posted my gallery visit on Art and Perception (seemed logical as it adds on to an original post on this sometime back). It will be interesting to read the renewed take this time around.

DC Diary

We spent the weekend in Washington D.C. The Hirshhorn museum was closed when we got there at dusk, but that did not stop us from enjoying some of the sculpture outside and taking some pictures.

'Clouds over Congress (pun unintended)'

'Washington Monument', Robert Mills, marble granite and sandstone, 555 feet high, 1884

Mark di Suvero, 'Are Years What? (for Marianne Moore)', welded steel I beams, 1967

Gaston Lachaise (1882 - 1935), 'Standing Woman', Bronze, conceived 1932 (cast 1981)

Jean Arp, 'Evocation of a Form: Human, Lunar, Spectral', Bronze, conceived 1950 cast in 1957