{"id":1198,"date":"2009-10-21T17:24:24","date_gmt":"2009-10-22T00:24:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp\/2009\/10\/the_art_of_necessity_at_the_he\/"},"modified":"2009-10-21T17:24:24","modified_gmt":"2009-10-22T00:24:24","slug":"the_art_of_necessity_at_the_he","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/2009\/10\/the_art_of_necessity_at_the_he.html","title":{"rendered":"The art of necessity at the Henry"},"content":{"rendered":"

Like a corset leaving little room for breathing, tight budgets curtail curatorial choices. The Henry Art Gallery<\/a> is dipping into its collections for answers, which in Henry’s case is overdue. Aside from photography and contemporary art from Bill and Ruth True<\/a>, what the Henry owns tends to be unexplored.<\/p>\n

Part of the reason is unwieldy diversity. Only in the 1980s, under director Richard Andrews, did the Henry clarify its identity as a contemporary art venue, leaving the bulk of its collections with no reason to surface. <\/p>\n

Besides contemporary art, these holdings range from historic photography, Horace C. Henry’s 19th-century landscapes; 19th-century prints, Japanese folk pottery, prints and ceramics as well as textiles, clothing and costumes from the U.S., Japan, Central Asia and Eastern Europe.<\/p>\n

Under director Sylvia Wolf, the necessity of budget cuts fused with a genuine interest in making what’s best in the back bins accessible to the public. Costumes and textiles are available in depth online<\/a>, with other collections to follow.<\/p>\n

In its galleries, the Henry is making a virtue of its disconnects. The unfailingly deft associate curator Sara
\nKrajewski opened the year-long Vortexhibition Polyphonica<\/i><\/a> with a fluid presentation of  nearly 100 objects that make sense in their own company, despite disparities of time, media and place. In 2010, senior curator Elizabeth Brown will reshuffle the object deck.<\/p>\n

Krajewski offers not just a noir Nan Goldin woman, but a corset her more modest mother might have worn in the 1950s.<\/p>\n

Nan Goldin, Joey with her heart shaped breasts, NYC<\/i>. 1999
\nSilver dye bleach (Cibachrome) print
\n25 9\/16 x 38 1\/8 in. (64.9 x 96.8 cm)<\/p>\n

\"nangoldintits.jpg\"\"corset.jpg\"The exhibition’s title is a hat tip to E.V. Day<\/a>‘s Cherry Bomb Vortex<\/i> from 2002. (Red sequin dress with monofilament, turnbuckles, and stainless steel base
\n115 x 102 x 102 in.)<\/p>\n

\"evdaydress.jpg\"The dress is exploding, but the hat needs work. Rhythm, ladies and gentlemen, rhythm. Were the title Vortex Polyphonica<\/i>  instead of Vortexhibition Polyphonica<\/em>, the point would have been clear and pronounceable, stylish even. As it is, it’s tone deaf and, with the suppression of the ex in exhibition, too cute. <\/p>\n

Better a bad title than a bad show. This one is a pleasure. The associations between objects are sometimes obvious but frequently subtle and intuitive. It asks viewers to create their own or simply enjoy shopping amid its multiplicity.<\/p>\n

Morris Graves would have been pleased by the company he’s keeping, a Buddhist devotional hanging from the 17th or 18th century in silk damask and satin weave with embroidery.<\/p>\n

Graves,
\nSublime Buddha Gestures<\/i> [study drawing]. 1935
\nInk drawing and tempera on Japanese rice paper
\n17 7\/8 x 13 7\/16 in.<\/p>\n

\"morrisgraveshand.jpg\" California funk is well represented along with Northwest fellow travelers, such as Clair Colquitt. The penis in the center is a replicia of his own. Turned on, it whirls like a drill.<\/p>\n

Table Top Air Purifier,<\/i> 1975
\nHand built and slab built earthenware with low fire underglazes, clear glaze and luster
\n20 7\/8 x 19 7\/8 x 17 3\/8 in
\"claircolpenis.jpg\" The spineless confront the rigid: Robert Longo’s color print Triptych: Men in the Cities<\/i> from 1981 is pretty funny in the company of Axel Lieber
\nI Beam (Ich Strahl)<\/i> from 2004.<\/p>\n

Shoes for bound feet keep company with stilettos from contemporary high fashion.(If you think they have nothing in common, take a look at the bunions on the feet of models.) Nineteenth-century silk brocades mix and match with Pop art dresses from the 1960s. Arnulf Raine and Lucas Samaras make fiend faces beside Cindy Sherman’s high gothic.    <\/p>\n

I love Helmi Dagmar Juvonen<\/a>‘s drawing, We Are the Seeds of Our Ancestors<\/i> from 1955. Juvonen was the only woman in the Northwest School. She was hauled away into a mental for having too many cats and being in love with<\/strike> stalking Mark Tobey.The artists in her circle tended to take themselves and their spiritual
\naspirations seriously. She was at hand to smack some
\nsense into them, rolling their fine ideas in her heavy, tender paws.<\/p>\n

A pair of Gilles Barbier’s panoramic landscape photographs feature himself as a footnote of a footnote within their terrains. He had an exhibit at the Henry in 1999. I looked up my review<\/a> and found it unrelentingly wrong. If I could walk back into the PI files and erase it, I’d be tempted. <\/p>\n

Paint makes the world go round. <\/p>\n

Jeffrey Simmons, Pontian<\/i>,1997
\nOil and alkyd on canvas
\n26 x 24 3\/8 x 1 1\/4 inches<\/p>\n

\"JefferySimmonshenr.jpg\"So does Howard Kottler<\/a>. Just in time for same-sex marriage, his Look-Alike Plates<\/i> from 1972. More images here<\/a>. He’s a buried treasure. <\/p>\n

\"howardkottlerplte.jpg\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Like a corset leaving little room for breathing, tight budgets curtail curatorial choices. The Henry Art Gallery is dipping into its collections for answers, which in Henry’s case is overdue. Aside from photography and contemporary art from Bill and Ruth True, what the Henry owns tends to be unexplored. Part of the reason is unwieldy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1198","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1198","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1198"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1198\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}