Real Clear Arts

Judith H. Dobrzynski on Culture

Artworks

Take Control of The Tate, With A Robot, After Dark

If an interactive experience with art is all the rage these days — and to some people it is — the latest project (I don’t know what else to call it) at the Tate in London is both in vogue and new. I think — at least I’ve not heard of anything like this.

TateAfterDarkRobotIt’s called After Dark and it just won the inaugural IK Prize, which is going to be awarded annually by the Tate to a project that “celebrates digital creativity and seeks to widen access to art through the application of digital technology.” (That’s per the press release.)

After Dark actually has an interesting, worthy goal: it attempts, using robots and the computer screen, to “re-create the experience of being alone in the gallery after dark.” Anyone who has had the privilege of a quiet, after-hour experience in a museum would want to do that. So:

This online experience invites people all over the world to view Tate Britain’s galleries online at night through four camera-equipped robots roaming the gallery spaces, connecting audiences with art in the BP Walk Through British Art. Live online for five consecutive nights from 13 August, the project will allow the public to view the robots on their journey through the artworks and a number of visitors will be able to remotely control their movements. A first-person, real-time video feed and live commentary will be streamed to all visitors on the After Dark website. This is the first project of its kind in a museum or gallery setting.

I tuned in for a short time tonight tapping the four video feeds to “watch live,” and listened to not-very-interesting chatter, only to have “them” (whoever they were) take a break. (I later learned that the project is live only from 10 p.m. to 3 a.m. UK time.)

The project invites anyone, anywhere to take control of one of the robots — by filling in a form (saying why you want to do it) on the website, you might be selected “at random intervals.”  After Dark warns:

The robots are choosy about their controllers. For your best chance to be picked you should:

– Avoid typing in an obscene name
– Have a good internet connection and a permissive network
– Use the latest version of the Chrome browser
– Let them know the name of your current location

A design studio called The Workers (Tommaso Lanza, Ross Cairns and David Di Duca) came up with this project. They created the robots, which come with lights, a camera, sensors and motors, with space engineers.

As kind of a demo, they enlisted Colonel Chris Hadfield, a former commander of the International Space Station, to be the first commander of the robots. They captured that, with some explanation of the project, and put it up online here on YouTube. If you stick around to the end, you might be pleased by the final comment.

But I was rather disappointed by my time “watching live.” Maybe it will get better as more people learn how to best use this device.

You have a few nights to try it.

 

 

Watching Art Be Made

Many people love going behind the scenes — and many art museums now offer some sort of occasion or event to do so. Next week, if you’re in Washington, the Freer-Sackler will let us all in on the installation of Japanese artist Chiharu Shiota, who is representing her country at the Venice Biennale next year.

osaka-5I was struck by the photos the Freer* sent me, and so decided to share them here, along with some of the information in the press release announcing the Aug. 18-21 installation.

For her installation, Shiota — based in Berlin — “will transform…almost 4 miles of red yarn, nearly 400 shoes and handwritten notes—into a dramatic and emotionally charged installation that embodies the artist’s personal memories.” She is apparently known for exploring “relationships between the human body, memory and loss” in installations that require a lot of space. At the Freer, her work — “Haunted by the traces that the human body leaves behind…amasses personal memories of lost individuals and past moments through an accumulation of discarded shoes and notes collected by the artist.”

osaka-4At least one bit of tension arises, though, because the work looks beautiful, at least until one gets close up.

At the public event in the Sackler galleries, curator Carol Huh will also be present, and “visitors are encouraged to submit questions for both the artist and curator through the museum’s Twitter handle, @FreerSackler, using the hashtag #perspectives. Video and images of the installation process will be made available online at asia.si.edu/shiota.”

This — and other events like it — strike me as a far better way to engage people, including younger generations, in art than many other initiatives I’ve seen. Of course, Shiota’s work lends itself to such offerings.

Photo Credit: (previous installations of this work) courtesy of the Freer-Sackler 

*I consult to a foundation that supports the Freer Sackler

Fourth of July Post

Morgan-SSBannerThe Morgan Library & Museum has put on display a rare first edition of “The Star Spangled Banner,” marking the 200th anniversary in 2014 of the origination of the famous anthem. And the Morgan is open today, until 5 p.m., in case you’re looking for something to do in the rain. Also, it has its regular hours this weekend.

Since it’s a holiday, I’ll quote completely from the Morgan’s press release:

Francis Scott Key’s poem, inspired by the sight of the flag defiantly flying over Fort McHenry after the British attack in September 1814, was set to the 1770s melody “To Anacreon in Heaven” by John Stafford Smith. The tune was composed for the Anacreontic Society, ironically a British music club that held its meetings at the Crown and Anchor Tavern in the Strand. Not until 1931 was “The Star-Spangled Banner” declared the nation’s official anthem by an act of Congress. Quite notably, patriotic is misspelled in the subtitle of this first edition, one of only a handful of surviving copies.

This manuscript, according to the collections record, was “Printed and sold at Carrs Music Store, 36 Baltimore Street [1814], in Baltimore.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of the Morgan

Public Art: The Video And The Cathedral

They’re excited in San Antonio about a new video installation in their town called The Saga by a French artist named Xavier de Richemont. (How do I know? The Visit San Antonio website calls it a “world class video art installation.”) 

San-Fernando-Cathedral_Tags_Main-Plaza_San-FernandoI thought I’d write briefly about it here because the piece is cast onto the facade of the 18th century San Fernando Cathedral, which is the seat of the archdiocese of San Antonio and a working church.

The Saga has nothing to do with religion, though — it’s about the city’s history, “the historical discovery, settlement and development of San Antonio.” We’ve seen lots of productions like this, but I don’t recall any on cathedrals. Here, at least. Richemont has done many installations in Europe and there may have been some there. He calls him work “a moving canvas, a moving painting.”

I’ve seen two excerpts of The Saga: one here, courtesy of Time Warner Cable in Austin and one here, courtesy of the San Antonio Convention and Visitors Bureau. It looks very entertaining, and it likely to be both a tourist attraction and a hometown hit.

I was also curious about the church’s approval — the video projects oil derricks, the Alamo, flags, stars, music-makers, and many other things onto the facade. And according to the release (San Antonio – The Saga), Archbishop Gustavo Garcia-Siller said, “We are very enthusiastic about our involvement in this project with the Main Plaza Conservancy. We gladly bless this effort and give our overwhelming support to San Antonio|The Saga video art installation.” Nice.

The piece made its debut last Friday evening and will continue on weekends and Tuesdays through December.

Delaware Deaccession Strategy: Sell Just Two Works?

The London auction offering William Holman Hunt’s Isabella and the Pot of Basil  from the Delaware Art Museum is a month away (June 17) but the catalogue is set to be released only on Monday. It’s pretty clear why: the museum wanted to sell it privately, but Christie’s couldn’t come up with a buyer who would pay the required price.

The painting carries an estimate of £5 to £8 million, or $8.4 to $13.4 million at today’s exchange rates, according to an article in the Wilmington News Journal.  It adds that the catalogue for the Victorian, Pre-Raphaelite and British Impressionist Art sale contains 12 pages on the Hunt painting.

hopper_summertime_550pxIf the Hunt does draw an amount near the $13 million mark — or more — the museum would probably move next to its wonderful Winslow Homer Milking Time, which should certainly fetch in the double-digit millions, more than the Hunt and — just a guess — $20 million? It dates to 1875 and measures 24 x 38¼ inches.

The museum’s money-raising, debt-reducing, endowment-building goal is $30 million.

Museum officials have already marked off several works they won’t be selling, according to the News Journal:

…the museum won’t sell any pieces by American illustrator Howard Pyle, given their lower estimated value.

Many other celebrated works in the museum’s 12,500-piece collection will be spared, according to Susan Kreshtool, the incoming president of the museum’s docent board who attended board meetings on the sale over the past year. These include the museum’s holdings of N.C., Andrew and Jamie Wyeth, and 20th century art and sculpture.

Early on the museum said it would not sell any works acquired through a gift or by bequest, which puts the vast bulk of its collection off-limits, including Edward Hopper’s Summertime (above).

All of which has people guessing about the strategy. Could two works do it?

Photo Credit: Courtesy of the Delaware Art Museum