Archives for June 2011

If you look hard, and think, the picture I am pasting at right may seem familiar — reminiscent, even, of a painting. It is, rather, a living wall erected outside the National Gallery in London — made of more than 8,000 plants of 26 varieties. It was erected out of the NG’s concern for the environment, an attempt to reduce its carbon footprint.

It is, of course, supposed to be van Gogh’s Wheatfield, With Cypresses, painted in 1889 — the version owned by the National Gallery, pictured below.

The plant picture is on view in Trafalgar Square, to the west of the National Gallery, now through October. It will, through the seasons, grow and change, of course (though I don’t know whether or when the sky will turn blue).

The ecopicture was made with the help of General Electric, which has a business it calls ‘ecomagination.’ You can learn more about that here, and through the National Gallery’s press release.

How much good the picture is going to the environment was left unsaid — perhaps it is uncalculable.  

But it’s a show — probably useful as an attention-getter both for climate change, art and, of course, GE.

Photo Credits: Courtesy of GE and the National Gallery

 

Lynn Hershman Leeson is one obsessed, or perhaps tenacious, woman.

For more than 40 years, she has been collecting interviews with artists, critics, curators and art historians about the Feminist Art Movement, and now she’s out with her film, !Women Art Revolution. It opened today at IFC Center in New York, after showing at the Sundance, Berlin and Toronto film festivals.

No matter what you think about gender studies and women’s art, the doc has a worthy subject. There’s no denying that women artists have had a much harder time breaking into the big leagues of the art world than men.

I can’t vouch for the quality of this documentary, because I haven’t seen it, but the lede to the review in The New York Times tells an anecdote suggesting the film’s relevancy: When people stopped outside both the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum were asked to name three women artists, most could not get past “Frida…ah…”

That review concludes with “…if this is ‘!W.A.R.,” omission is the enemy. And Ms. Hershman Leeson’s fighting spirit is contagious.”

Movie City News called it “compelling” and added,

This doc is a real gem — as relevant to the feminist art movement as Exit Through the Gift Shop was for street art, albeit less flashy in its composition. If you love art, or have any interest at all in film, art, and the place women have in those disciplines, you don’t want to miss this.

And Film Journal says:

!Women Art Revolution. is a messy mash-up of feminism, art and politics too often punctuated by ponderous statements. But the doc does make the case that women artists were victims of discrimination, deserved to be mad as hell and, as members of the feminist art movement, had the guts to act. What does not come across is that their output, as evidenced by the bits on display here and with very few exceptions, had much artistic merit.

You can’t ask for better than that. In general, I think political art is tough to pull off well, and I can’t say I love feminist art. But political documentaries, they’re a different genre altogether.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of !W.A.R.