April 2003 4.30.2003 Reason No. 3498 that Peter Schjeldahl rocks: "I will never accept that arts criticism is a profession like dentistry. It is rather a zone of overlap between journalism and literature like sportswriting. My heroes are Charles Baudelaire and Roger Angell." -- Schjeldahl, Columns & Catalogues, 1994. posted by Tyler at 12:30 PM MANpal Jason Racki contributes this link to a U.S. State Department publication called The Arts in America: New Directions. It includes a Terry Teachout essay on beauty, and an Eleanor Heartley essay about contemporary American art. (Yes, this is the same Eleanor Heartley who wrote in Art in America that the latest Shirin Neshat film installation was about Mexican laborers and Mexican mysticism. Neshat: Mexican laborers and mysticism. No joke.) posted by Tyler at 9:59 AM Awkward phrasing from an otherwise readable Carol Vogel NYT auction preview: "To make matters worse, no superrich collectors died this winter, so there were no big estates that an auction house could use as bait to lure other property." posted by Tyler at 9:42 AM 4.29.2003 I frequently receive press releases from art groups. Often they require translation (or maybe I need to be younger). Today's bit of befuddlement comes from Transformer, a non-profit in Washington: "Following in the antic traditions of Futurism and DaDa, CUTPURSE seeks to combine disparate, hypocritical elements into a performative w(hole). Musically extended from the daydreamt confrontation of Throbbing Gristle vs Suicide, inspired by the eccentric loop layering of This Heat, cyberpunk posturing of The Boredoms and the banal, theatrical linearity of car commercials, boy bands and death metals everywhere... CUTPURSE strives for a DaDa Disco Disconcert." posted by Tyler at 5:29 PM Bloggy features notes on two days of NYC gallery walks, including both Chelsea and Williamsburg. And speaking of NYC, check out Brian's LiveJournal on the forthcoming 'zine Ten Verses and other NYC goings-on. posted by Tyler at 9:59 AM Did you know that NASA has an art collection? They even have a website for it. posted by Tyler at 9:32 AM 4.28.2003 'Twas a really good art weekend in Washington, the first in a very long while. Some notes from around town: * The next show at G Fine Art in Georgetown is a drawings show featuring drawings by women. Included in the show will be Inka Essenhigh, Louise Bourgeois, G's own Maggie Michael and more. Look for a May 20 opening. * You still need to get in line over an hour and a half early to get into Kirk Varnedoe's Mellon Lectures (two left) at the National Gallery. Question for M. Varnedoe: why is reading female genitalia into this work by Eva Hesse a "feminist" interpretation? Why can't a male critic or a non-feminist come to the same conclusion and comment on it? You rarely/never hear female critics talking about the "male interpretation" of a particular work, so why do male critics feel the need to distance themselves from female-focused or female-created art by labeling it 'feminist?' (Unsponsored MANpromo: For more along this line, see my Cecily Brown essay.) * See the Patrick Wilson/Susan Smith-Pinelo shows at Fusebox. It's their best show since Jason Falchook's solo show. (More on artnet in the next week or so, I think.) posted by Tyler at 4:08 PM More frivolous fun (well, art theft isn't frivolous, but it's fun to read about anyway): Read the story about Paul McCarthy, Santa Claus and a certain sex toy. posted by Tyler at 9:34 AM Update: The paintings appear to have been recovered and apparently severely damaged by rain. I'm a sucker for a good art theft story! posted by Tyler at 12:20 AM 4.25.2003 I don't do this kind of thing very often, but maybe you're a DC arts person and want to attend the Americans for the Arts convention for free. posted by Tyler at 7:50 PM Coming to the National Gallery in the fall: Picasso: The Cubist Portraits of Fernande Olivier. posted by Tyler at 11:20 AM If you like color, you'll like Katharina Grosse, a European painter who has rarely exhibited in this country. (I first saw her work in last year's Urgent Painting show.) She is currently having her first US solo show at Christopher Grimes. The LA Times briefed it here. posted by Tyler at 11:12 AM MAN's sketchy contemporary art auctions preview: Christie's * Warhol, Campbell's Soup Can (Pepperpot) (1962). Estimate: $1.5-2M. Yawn. * Richter, Laachter Meadow (1987). Estimate: $2.5-3M. Is Richter still hot at auction? * Louis, 7 Bronze (1958). Estimate: $200-300K. All you need to know about color field painting and the art market is that Louis resides at the upper end of color field auction results. And the estimate for this veil painting is $200-300K. * Struth, Musee d'Orsay 2, Paris (1990, ed. 8/10). Estimate $70-90K. I would bet that most Struth museum pieces that are available in the secondary market go privately. Sometimes the auction result gives you an idea of the secondary market... Sotheby's * Celmins, Untitled (Ocean) (1990-95). Estimate: $200-300K. What a precious little oil painting. If anyone wants to buy it for me, my email addy is in the upper left. * Celmins, Long Ocean #5 (1972). Estimate: $150-200K. This one's bigger and a graphite. * Richter, Davos S. (1981). Estimate: $2-3M. How often do you see a canvas sold right out of a major show? Not very often. This one is currently hanging in the Richter retro @ the Hirshhorn. (Or it was last time I was there.) * Neshat, Untitled (Rapture Series) (1999, ed. 5/10). Estimate: $6-8K. Just because I have Neshat on the brain. posted by Tyler at 9:00 AM 4.24.2003 Anyone who writes about art should read this old Jerry Saltz piece. posted by Tyler at 10:20 PM I posit that realism and figurative painting are two different things. posted by Tyler at 3:11 PM The spring auction season is here. Some notable modern art offerings (tomorrow we'll preview contemporary offerings): Sotheby's * Degas, Danseuse (1885-90). Estimate: $9-12M. This is being sold by the Boston MFA to help build their acquisition fund. * Vuillard, Devant La Tapisserie: Misia et Thadee Natanson (1899). Estimate: $1.2-1.6M. Will the currently circulating Vuillard retro impact the sale price? Christie's * Degas, Petite Danseuse de quatorze ans (1879-81, this one case in 1922). Estimate: $8-12M. Everyone's got a headlining Degas this season. * Cezanne, Self-portrait of Paul Cezanne (c. 1895). Estimate: $15-20M. The NYT reported that this canvas was offered privately @ $50M. So much for that idea. * Matisse, Renee, Harmonie Verte (1923). Estimate: $400-600K. The chair in this oil turned up a lot in Matisse paintings, including in one of the portraits of Amelie in the Hermitage (and now in the MOMA QNS show). posted by Tyler at 2:24 PM The International Herald Tribune's international arts guide. posted by Tyler at 1:45 PM Last year MAN wrote about the Seattle Art Museum's novel way of funding its expansion. Now they've picked an architect: Portland-based Brad Cloepfil's Allied Works. This is notable to MAN for a number of reasons, including because Allied Works is the architect for Tadao Ando's next-door neighbor in St. Louis, the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis. AW is also the architect for the re-imagining of NYC's Columbus Circle Monstrosity. posted by Tyler at 10:35 AM 4.23.2003 Art and culture blogs seem to be proliferating like crazy. 2blowhards tips me offf to Brian Micklethwait's blog, which seems to be focused on the intersection of art and popular culture (paging Libby Lumpkin). posted by Tyler at 12:35 PM Today's NYT special section on museums. As you may have guessed, more from MAN later today. Continuing the morning link-o-rama... check out this piece on Tadao Ando from The Japan Times and this Ando exhibit. (Thanks AK). MANpal Karyn Caplan sends over this from Electronic Arts Intermix. It features "transcultural investigations into national and cultural identity" expressed through video art. Egon Schiele discussed in The Guardian. Happy birthday (a day late) to MANfave Richard Diebenkorn. posted by Tyler at 9:35 AM 4.22.2003 Greg.org and I are taking turns posting each other's link-finds. Today I steal oft art bloggish PQ+ from him. While I'm link-dumping, I might as well share Sussan Deyhim's website. She does a lot of music for Shirin Neshat and you can buy CDs of that music at her site. Also, The Guardian's Jonathan Jones reminds us of the history of Jasper Johns' Flag. posted by Tyler at 9:58 AM 4.21.2003 "I do not mean it metaphorically when I say that soon a dealer will mount an exhibition of shit and collectors will buy it," -- John Berger, 1967. Circa late 2002: voila. (This belongs in the press release hall of fame. It includes this: "It was next a matter of pressing it into a suitable form. The creative process of determining form provides an exemplary illustration of the "ping-pong effect" that operates when Jason Rhoades and Paul McCarthy join forces. A perfect synthesis of individual artistic intentions is reached through the almost playful-seeming exchange of ideas, with each concept containing the seed for the next.") posted by Tyler at 10:07 AM The Philly Inquirer's art critic, Edward Sozanski, kicks off a three-part series on the Barnes Foundation's collection. Sozanski, who I don't usually find all that interesting, starts with examining the sculpture and ceramics in the Barnes collection (including work that is not in the Foundation's home in the Main Line). This is a useful series because the Barnes is tough to visit, therefore I suspect that a lot of arts lovers haven't spent a lot of time there. I really hope Sozanski devotes the third part of his series to a look at how the collection, especially the paintings and the Matisse mural are degenerating due to lack of conservation and care. In a related story, John Anderson has written a book titled, Art Held Hostage: The Story of the Barnes Collection. I paged through it over the weekend and it looks like a magazine article masquerading as a book. posted by Tyler at 9:52 AM 4.20.2003 Art blogs everywhere: Check out artnotes and the photo-focused esthet. posted by Tyler at 1:31 PM 4.18.2003 Random notes (because I'm too worn down to think) * Is there anything sillier than the metal detectors at the National Gallery? What a total waste of time and money. (Kudos to the Hirshhorn for not caving in to the absurdity.) * The American press is all a-tizzy about the plunder of work from Iraqi museums. Why don't the visual arts in the US merit similar coverage, especially with the drastic state budget cuts to arts programs? (Big surprise: Not one story in the Washington Post about this -- they're too busy running two Style stories on the Atkins diet.) * Related story: "It's as much as anything a matter of priorities," says Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Gen. Richard Myers. Yup. * ArtsJournal's archive of Iraqi museum/art stories. * Five years ago the Met started planning an exhibit of Mesopotamian/Iraqi antiquities. I wonder what they're planning for 2008? * Sad: The Atlantic no longer has an arts section on its website. * As much as I complain lately about DC's art scene, at least I don't have to go look at an exhibit of garbage. * If you can recommend a free comment system other than YACCS, Blog Back, Squawk Box or Haloscan, please email me. posted by Tyler at 9:36 AM 4.17.2003 The Morning News is one of my favorite websites. Today they feature a short essay about a Chelsea gallery crawl. The writer concludes that some art is bad, the rest is difficult to understand, therefore it all sucks and it's all a fraud. I find this to be a sadly facile conclusion. In any given gallery crawl, in NYC or elsewhere, most of the work is bad. Finding the gems and thinking about what you see is where much of the fun is. posted by Tyler at 2:35 PM Worth monitoring over the next five weeks: Dia:Beacon. Between the Ando MAMFW and Dia:Beacon, maybe the Gehryfication of museums is on the wane. posted by Tyler at 12:50 PM Some semi-art blogs: Revelator, Iola, and gmtPlus9. None are all art, all the time, but they all often have art-related content. Molly Springfield isn't updated as often but has good content. posted by Tyler at 10:53 AM 4.16.2003 Proof that random art-related websurfing can bring a smile on a down day: This is a completely cool idea. Fun with art @ Albright-Knox. I'd make a fine Andre or a menacing Borofsky Hammering Man. Perhaps re-enacting a Cecily Brown painting would win the competition. (Albright-Knox owns one and describes it rather, er, carefully.) Update: Faith Flanagan of the Phillips Collection reports that she'd be "Easels" by Maria Elena Vieira da Silva. (That particular work is not online.) posted by Tyler at 11:14 AM 4.15.2003 Admin note: Despite repeated pleas from me for no pseudonyms and no anonymous posts on the message boards, there were two pseudonymic (is that even a word?) posts on Tuesday. After Wednesday, the comment boards will disappear until I find a free comment system that enables me to block the posts of anonymous or fake-named posters. In the future, if you have a gripe or a comment, please e-mail me directly and, time-willing and intelligence of e-mail allowing, I'll be happy to respond. posted by Tyler at 11:33 PM New to me: A contemporary art magazine from Romania, called artphoto. posted by Tyler at 12:56 PM In recent months I've been especially interested in the portrayal of cultures and subcultures in contemporary art and whether the resulting artworks are temporal or timeless. (See: Neshat, Shirin; Opie, Catherine; or Mthethwa, Zwelethu.) Latest in the string of artists and projects about which I'm thinking is Minneapolis and St. Paul are East African cities, created by (Ethiopian-American) Julie Mehretu for the Walker. posted by Tyler at 11:27 AM I have no comment about this, but from time to time I like to post something a little bizarre. (Thanks AJ.) Hint: The Guardian calls it "psychotic porn." posted by Tyler at 10:25 AM 4.14.2003 Ever heard of the Sharjah Biennial? The sixth version of the Sharjah Biennial is underway in the United Arab Emirates and has (or should) special saliency this year. Contemporary Art and Islam previews. The English-language, UAE-based Gulf News details the opening. posted by Tyler at 4:24 PM Is the Washington Post content being a paper that is most interested in its most simplistic readers? That's the only conclusion I can draw from this horrid Sunday Travel piece. In it the Post sends some poor shmuck who admits he knows nothing about art to go write a story about Museum Mile in NYC. Would the Post send a political neophyte to a political convention? Would the Post send a non-football fan to cover a Redskins game? Of course not. So why, when they do a story about NYC's museums would they send someone who is proud of being an ignoramus? posted by Tyler at 9:34 AM 4.11.2003 A fine 2blowhards post on the religion of minimalism. posted by Tyler at 3:18 PM Fascinating and unlikely: the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art. Among the artists in their collection: Picasso, Warhol, Toulouse-Lautrec, and Johns. Among the Iranian artists not in their collection: Shirin Neshat. posted by Tyler at 1:18 PM News to me: Yahoo's directory has a section that lists art-related weblogs. posted by Tyler at 11:42 AM This poll, detailed in the Boston Globe, exposes how poor arts groups have been at lobbying state legislature(s). Eighty to 94 percent of Bay Staters (that's Mass.) favor making the arts as key a part of school curriculums as math and support state funding for the arts. But budgets get slashed. This is either a failure of arts leadership, who may figure that lobbying is not what arts people do, or a failure of funding availability. A similar poll, released a few months back and no longer available for free on the SJ Mercury News website, revealed similar opinion in California. posted by Tyler at 11:11 AM 4.10.2003 Artnet has pulled together the national reps for Venice. I'm particularly looking forward to seeing the work of Sterbak, Rovner and the Russian duo Dubossarsky and Vinogradov. posted by Tyler at 1:46 PM Good news (for me anyway!): More of the problems related to upgrading Blogger Pro have been fixed (not all though). As a result my hit-counter is working again, links should work on all platforms and I can see referring pages (which means I can find cool new blogs/sites again and can post a little bit more). Interesting story in this morning's Post about the Rubells coming to Washington. One mistake: "The Rubells are known for buying pieces by artists who haven't made it -- yet." Not quite true: the Rubells mostly buy known names in contemporary art. posted by Tyler at 1:18 PM 4.9.2003 ArtsJournal pegs this article as being from "Eye: the International Review of Graphic Design," but this is an indy site. Anyway, it's about how conceptualism may be nearing a pause point and that beauty and visual engagement may be making a comeback as an antithesis to conceptualism. And if you enjoy watching people beat up on me, you'll get a kick out of the ongoing discussion on Guston here. posted by Tyler at 4:21 PM 4.8.2003 Wow, two new (to me) art blogs in one week. (This one is shamelessly pilfed from greg.org.) Check out Bloggy. posted by Tyler at 8:15 PM You know you're a superstar art critic when... your local alternative weekly newspaper gossips about your relationship with your university's administration, takes a stand on your wife's tenure battle, and prints these tidbits under the headline, "UNLV courts disaster." It could only be Dave Hickey. (Ed: The note is about halfway down the page.) posted by Tyler at 7:30 PM Dallas/Fort Worth, continued: I really enjoyed the Amadeo Modigliani show at the Kimball. Modigliani died young (the wall text in the exhibit manages to gloss over that Modigliani mostly died young because he spent such a high percentage of his life either high or drunk or both), so his output isn't prodigious. This show does a good job of showing Modgiliani's work and placing it in the context of his contemporaries. General thoughts: * I wish there had been more of Modigliani's luscious, lusty, hot, hot, hot nudes. * The show emphasized Modigliani's clothed portraits and included one of the two full-length portraits he painted. * In several paintings and drawings Modigliani sees how much energy he can compress into one figure on one canvas. Caryatid (1911-13) is a good example. (I can't find this particular Caryatid online. Modigliani did many pieces with this title.) In this canvas Modigliani maximizes the curves of the female body and minimizes the space on the canvas into which they fit by narrowing the canvas with parallel bands of color on either side of the canvas. * Back to the portraits: Modigliani is a master of the head tilt. He gets a lot of implied meaning out of the angle of the subject's head. * The Phillips, which is doing a Modigliani show in early 2005, has a high mark at which to shoot. Next (and final) stop for this show is LACMA. There is no way this show will be as visually impacting in LACMA's awful gallery spaces than it is at the Kimball. posted by Tyler at 11:08 AM 4.7.2003 Check out an art (and books) blog I just found: That Rabbit Girl. posted by Tyler at 8:23 PM The Tadao Ando Museum of Modern Art Fort Worth is as great as you've read. The outside of the building, as approached from the parking lot, is flat and gives no hints of the splendor within. Inside... concrete brilliance. Go. Some highlights from the collection: * The first canvas on the way into the collection is Motherwell's Stephen's Iron Crown, a work that reminds me of details of the building's architecture. * Just past the Motherwell is one of the most affecting pairing of two works you'll ever see in a museum of modern art. In its own alcove is Anselm Kiefer's Book With Wings. Facing it on a wall is Kiefer's Aschenblume, a deconstructed abstraction of a Speer-designed hall as it lays in ruins. Fascist failure faces the promise of freedom. * MAMFW has a number of great pieces, including Rothko's White Band No. 27, Martin Puryear's Ladder for Booker T. Washington, Celmins' German Plane and Ruscha's Standard Station 10-cent Western Being Torn in Half. * As good as the works is the way they're installed in the building. Curator Michael Auping has oft shown great restraint, giving works entire walls or galleries to themselves. As I walked through I thought about the MOMA March Through Modern Art and compared the way MOMA used to present it to the way work is displayed at MAMFW. The MOMA installation approaches drudgery. The MAMFW installation (complete with benches!) washes over the viewer in waves instead of assaulting him. * Also saw MAMFW's Guston retro. Has there ever been a more overrated painter? The figurative works are among the ugliest, most visually unpleasant canvases you'll ever see in a major museum. posted by Tyler at 8:23 PM 4.1.2003 Posting resumes on April 7 when MAN returns from Texas. posted by Tyler at 12:25 PM Here's a project idea for new National Endowment for the Arts boss Dana Gioia. The Euros have this thing called the European Capital of Culture that rotates among cities throughout the continent (and the UK) every year. This year's capital is Graz. (The Brits' next turn is in 2008 and The Guardian is already discussing it.) The program funds exhibits, performances and other generally good stuff that serves as a tourist magnet and as an artistic laboratory of a sort. Wouldn't it be fun (and non-controversial) to have a U.S. Capital of Culture that rotates through different regions of the U.S.? posted by Tyler at 10:46 AM posted by mclennan @ Thursday, April 3, 2003 | Permanent link