Real Clear Arts

Judith H. Dobrzynski on Culture

Artists

A Rebellious Exhibition At the Delaware Art Museum

3_kasebier-photos-in-nyt_webHere’s a change of pace from my last three posts, about museums.

In the “the more things change” department: The Delaware Art Museum recently opened an exhibition that underscores the verities of the art world — maybe the whole world. Called Gertrude Käsebier’s Photographs of the Eight: Portraits for Promotion, it reveals how those artists used photopgraphic portraits and other media to promote themselves and their groundbreaking 1908 exhibition at MacBeth Gallery.

Of course, it was a different age, and they couldn’t hold a candle to artists like Jeff Koons and Damian Hirst. And they didn’t have powerful dealers like Larry Gagosian and Arne and Marc Glimcher to do it for them.

So the Eight — Robert Henri, John Sloan, William Glackens, George Luks, Arthur B. Davies, Everett Shinn, Ernest Lawson, and Maurice Prendergast — turned to Gertrude Käsebier and asked her to create “emotive and atmospheric portraits,” according to the museum’s press release. They mounted an aggressive year-long effort with the press, and the resulting articles in newspapers and magazines bore headlines like “Secession in Art,” “New York’s Art War and the Eight Rebels” and “A Rebellion in Art.” Käsebier’s portraits provided the illustrations. The articles talked about the Eight’s work and ideas about modern art. As for the show, it ran for 13 days and contained 63 pictures — but it was a watershed.

Kasebier_Sloan_webThe Delaware museum is also home to a large archive whose contents include postcards between the artists, exhibition catalogs, press clippings, and a complete set of Käsebier’s portrait photographs — which are of course being used to tell the story.

Käsebier (1852-1934), the museum says, “bridged the worlds of fine art photography and commercial portraiture, exhibiting her work in galleries while maintaining a portrait studio on Fifth Avenue in New York. She is considered one of the most influential American photographers of the early 20th century and is known for her powerful images of motherhood and portraits of Native Americans.”

Käsebier took up photography in her late thirties while studying portrait painting at the Pratt Institute. She worked with a chemist and a professional photographer to learn the trade and opened a New York studio in 1897. She experimented with different printing techniques and her photographs resembled works of art. Seeking to capture the individuality of each sitter, Käsebier eschewed standard studio props, relying on pose and lighting to convey character. Käsebier also participated in important photography exhibitions at a time when photographers, artists, and critics were arguing for the artistic potential of the medium.

Their composite portrait is above, and at right is one of John Sloan. The Delaware museum was also kind enough to send me a wall text that tells much more of the story, which is available here.

This show, which opened on Feb. 23, runs through July 7. And the museum is presenting a talk tonight and symposium tomorrow on the show.

Photo Credits: Courtesy of the Delaware Art Museum

 

Admit That You Were Wrong

The February issue of ARTnews has a thought-provoking article that was posted online earlier today: Split Decisions: When Critics Change Their Minds by Ann Landi. (Hat tip here to Ed Goldman, whose email about it I received last week. Yesterday, when I could not find the article, I asked Robin Cembalest, the magazine’s executive editor, about it, and she got it up online today.)

turrell-at-PomonaThe story’s deck: “What makes art critics revise their opinions? Some mind-changing critics explain”

As you will read in the article, it all started last year when Peter Schjeldahl recanted his earlier characterization of Klimt’s 1907 portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer as “transcendant” and instead deemed it “a largish, flattish bauble” and “a mess.”

Smartly, ARTnews reviews the long history of what it calls “flip-flops” (including Clement Greenberg’s) and then got a few contemporary critics to admit their “errors.” Among them, Peter Plagens was the most forthcoming, confessing “changes of heart” on “Helen Frankenthaler, Francis Bacon, James Turrell, and Robert Irwin, among others.” Christopher Knight is cited as reversing course on a piece by Nancy Rubins, and Kim Levin refined her view of John Currin.

There’s more in the article.

I’m not a full-time critic, but rather more a reporter.  Yet here’s one blooper I fully confess: my first view of James Turrell, based mainly on the large tunnel at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and a few other of his works, was not favorable — and also not fair, since I’d seen so little (I was living abroad when he had a big show in New York, at the Whitney, in 1980). Now, I think the opposite — I love much of his work, especially the skyspaces, like the one here at Pomona College – and I’m looking forward to the three-venue exhibition of his works this summer.

How about you?

 

In Egypt: Islamists And Artists — The Battles Continue

I had a hunch it was time to check in on the contemporary art situation in Egypt, given that the new Islamist-drafted constitution passed recently, handing a victory to the Muslim Brotherhood. I can only report what I read elsewhere, and that news isn’t great.

Culture for All EgyptiansLast week, the online English edition of Al Ahram published an article rounding up what’s happened in the Egyptian art world over the past year in a piece headlined Artists and Islamists Going Head to Head. It began:

Islamists’ attack on arts and culture in Egypt since they came into power has manifested in several cases of conflict between Islamist sheikhs and politicians.

The Islamist stances vary between accepting only “art with a purpose,” to not having an issue with art as long as some restrictions are put on nudity and controversial topics. A more extreme Islamist stance sees artistic expression as a form of Westernisation that promotes values not in line with Egyptian Islamic tradition. Not only did sheikhs attack the arts, but so was it attacked on the streets, where Muslim Brotherhood and Salafist supporters had direct confrontations with artists, at times even impeding them from their work.

At year-end, it was a standoff, but with a few surprises. For one, last Sept. 6, President Mohamed Morsi met in an open meeting with artists — at the Presidential Palace. Morsi reportedly told the artists and writers who attended that the government values their work and that it’s a “major pillar of Egyptian society.” Yet some boycotted. Why? One, “renowned actress Samira Ahmed” … “told Al-Ahram Arabic-language newspaper she would not attend such meetings until real action is taken against everyone who insulted artists.” Morsi didn’t please Islamic preachers either —

Sheikh Wagdy Ghoneim, who publishes many controversial videos on his YouTube channels, released a video entitled Is this Art? denouncing Morsi’s move to build bridges with artists, whom he calls “immoral.” He also charges that Egypt was a civil state and that it should follow sharia (Islamic law): the reason many voted Morsi into power according to Ghoneim.

And so it went. The article provides several instances of artists asserting themselves, and Islamicist fighting back — against new films, visual art, writing. It ends on a positive note:

The Culture Resource (Al-Mawred Al-Thaqafy) just launched a campaign called “A Culture for All Egyptians” with posters (pictured above) all over the streets and media campaigns affirming people’s right to be part of the culture movement: culture with no boundaries on artistic expression. The campaign aims to make these changes in culture policies and law to give people a chance to be part of the artistic movement.

Can this campaign be believed? It would be a step forward (see the article at that link), but that’s unclear. Over the past couple of years, museums in the U.S. and Europe have made great efforts to increase the presence of Islamic art on view — and many have taken that drive into contemporary art as well. We are so vigilant when the Chinese suppress art; we should be just as vigilant in the Middle East.

 

Iwan Baan’s Path To Stardom, Courtesy of Hurricane Sandy

IWBA-0001-682x1024What’s that old line about making good by doing good? It applies to Iwan Baan, the Dutch photographer who the day after Hurricane Sandy hit New York City took what turned out to be an iconic image from the air. It showed Manhattan half in the dark, half in the light, crystallizing the line already in circulation that New York was a tale of two cities. New York Magazine commissioned the photo for its Nov. 12 cover.

Baan is an established architecture photographer who now, because of that image, called The City and the Storm, has made the leap into the art gallery world. He was picked up recently by Perry Rubenstein, and will have an exhibition at Rubenstein’s  Los Angeles space beginning Feb. 20.

But here’s the doing good part:

Baan has created an artwork based on this powerful image — a large format artwork (70-3/4 x 47-1/4 inches) in an edition of 10. It will be shown at the Rubenstein Gallery’s upcoming exhibition of Baan’s work titled The Way We Live. The edition will be sold for $100,000 each to benefit the Mayor’s Fund To Advance New York City in support of Hurricane Sandy relief efforts (nyc.gov/fund). And the Museum of Modern Art, in cooperation with Iwan Baan and Perry Rubenstein Gallery, has issued a poster of The City and the Storm, that will also support relief efforts. More information at MoMAstore.org.

Previously, Baan’s work had been shown in the Museum of Modern Art’s exhibition, Small Scale, Big Change: New Architectures of Social Engagement, and in the Carnegie Museum of Art’s, White Cube, Green Maze: New Art Landscapes, according to a press release from Rubenstein.

His generosity toward the city was noted by noneother than Mayor Bloomberg, who is quoted in the  release saying: “Iwan Baan’s powerful and now iconic image brought to life one of the many devastating effects our City experienced in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. Baan’s first exhibition at the Perry Rubenstein Gallery will not only share his images but help support our City’s efforts to recover from this devastating storm through their generous contribution to the Mayor’s Fund.”

Baan doesn’t even live in New York.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Perry Rubenstein Gallery

 

 

Did Tobias Meyer Really Say This?

TobiasMeyerI have to think that even Andy Warhol — maybe especially Andy Warhol — would laugh at a comment made recently by Tobias Meyer (ar right), the worldwide head of contemporary art at Sotheby’s recently. To wit:

“It has the intensity of a great Warhol or a great Bacon.”

The “it” under discussion was the Raphael drawing sold by Sotheby’s on behalf of Chatsworth on Dec. 5. Head of An Apostle fetched nearly $47.9 million after intense bidding. It’s an amazing piece of work that at least one expert I know thinks is Raphael’s best drawing in private hands. And maybe his best drawing ever.

What was Meyer thinking?

Elsewhere in the video, Sotheby’s experts Gregory Rubinstein and Christiana Romalli talk about Raphael’s career and laud this drawing properly as the “most intensely moving, powerful and wonderful drawing” Sotheby’s has ever handled. I wonder what they thought of Meyer’s comment. And I wonder who made the video and actually decided to use that quote.

Meyer goes on to say: “This is the greatest drawing by one of the greatest artists in the world.” Good recovery. But it hard for me to believe that he would make the comparison between Raphael and Warhol or Bacon — more so because Meyer not only thinks it, but said it — out loud, on a recording. There’s no room to deny it. See the video for yourself here (the second one, “Raphael: Renaissance Masters from Chatsworth.”

I asked the aforementioned anonymous, highly respected expert if we should laugh or cry. “Both,” he replied.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of The Telegraph