Real Clear Arts

Judith H. Dobrzynski on Culture

Exhibitions

Oddly, Bush’s Art Gives Reason To Cheer

ad_131588191I’m sure you all saw coverage of the exhibit showing portraits painted by former president George W. Bush. The show at the George W. Bush Presidential Center at Southern Methodist University was front page news, pictorially, in New York — here in The New York Times and here in The Wall Street Journal — and probably elsewhere too.

It was criticized as amateurish by some — most? — and I don’t disagree. So was Winston Churchill’s art, but it was still interesting that he could as well as he did, given all the other things Churchill did so well.

eeeeBush’s art, meanwhile, bears a lot of similarity, to me, to that of the overrated Elizabeth Peyton, whose work has sold for more than $1 million. Her portrait of Elizabeth II at sixteen, below left (versus Bush’s view of Angela Merkel, at right), fetched $518,500 at Christie’s. Others I know see Alex Katz in there and one misguided soul sees “a touch of Beckmann.” It would be a very tiny touch, imho.

So why cheer? The answer it in the NYT article:

Now on some days [Bush] spends three or four hours at his easel. The man who never much cared for museums — he rushed through the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia, in 30 minutes flat — told a private gathering the other day that he now could linger in art exhibits for hours at a time studying brush strokes and color palettes.

Bush’s newfound feelings underscore research findings that getting people to participate in art themselves leads them to visit museums. If we teach children to make art, no matter how primitive, a good proportion are likely to grow up to appreciate art and be museum visitors. That’s a better strategy for museums, it seems to me, than attracting those elusive young people with dance parties and other activities that have little, or nothing, to so with the art on view.

 

How Do We Feel About Killer Heels?

As the subject of an art exhibition, that is — not on what to wear. That’s the question I’ve been mulling since yesterday, when the Brooklyn Museum* sent out a press release announcing Killer Heels: The Art of the High-Heeled Shoe, which opens there in September.

killerheelsFashion exhibits are popular these days, and many are fine considerations of costumes old and new. I’ve lauded some here, and panned others. With a name like Killer Heels, you know the marketing folks have been involved. That’s not a bad thing, depending on how deep it goes. Curators shouldn’t feel pressure to change what they’re doing for marketing reasons, though it’s fine to take marketing into consideration.

Which way will Killer Heels go? Hard to say at this point, but some elements of art — beyond the shoes themselves — are part of the show, which is billed this way:

Through more than 160 artfully-crafted historical and contemporary high heels from the seventeenth century through the present, the exhibition examines the mystique and transformative power of the elevated shoe and its varied connections to fantasy, power, and identity.

The art additions (except for those of you who do not believe that film is art) are:

The exhibition also features six short films inspired by high heels that were specifically commissioned for this exhibition from artists Ghada Amer and Reza Farkhondeh, Zach Gold, Steven Klein, Nick Knight, Marilyn Minter, and Rashaad Newsome.

And a few more details about the contents:

The objects [i.e. shoes], both traditionally made and conceptual in nature, explore and play with the elevated shoe’s sculptural, architectural, and artistic possibilities. Early shoes on view include mid-seventeenth century Italian chopines made of silk, leather, and wood, European leather and metal pattens from the eighteenth century, and nineteenth-century cotton and silk embroidered Manchu platform shoes from China. Other highlights of Killer Heels are Marilyn Monroe’s Ferragamo stilettos (1959); stiletto mules of silk, metal, and glass by Roger Vivier for House of Dior (1960); and a wool “heel hat” made by Elsa Schiaparelli in collaboration with Salvador Dalí (1937-38).  Contemporary heels in the exhibition include “Printz,” from Christian Louboutin’s Spring/Summer 2013-14 collection; Zaha Hadid’s chromed vinyl rubber, kid nappa leather, and fiberglass “Nova” shoe (2013), made in collaboration with United Nude; Iris van Herpen’s 3-D printed heel, “Beyond Wilderness” (2013); a black leather platform bootie with an 8-inch heel designed by Rem D. Koolhaas for Lady Gaga (2012); and Céline’s fur pump (2013) covered in mink.

Need I say, this show will travel?  Destinations undisclosed at this point.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of the Brooklyn Museum

*I consult to a foundation that supports the Brooklyn Museum

 

What’s So Good About Milwaukee?

SkyllasYoungGirlI’m talking the Milwaukee Art Museum here, and the answer — actually — is a lot of things.

Most people — especially those outside the art world — know the museum for its signature wing designed by Santiago Calatrava, the brise-soleil roofed Quadracci Pavilion (which I am happy to report — unlike many high-profile museum buildings — does not leak, according to Brady Roberts, the chief curator).

But, as close readers of today’s Wall Street Journal will see, I was there recently to see Uncommon Folk: Traditions in American Art. I liked it, largely because it really showcases the collection — nearly 600 objects, mostly from the museum’s own collection, which contains nearly 1,500 objects. My review is here.

Uncommon Folk is a lot for people to take in, but I think that is one of the points: visitors can’t possibly stop to appreciate 600 things, but by being immersed in them you come to an understanding of the vast range of what constitutes folk art. And you pick favorites, for sure — MAMdeMejo1which may change the next time you go through the exhibit.

I’m not going to quote from my review — writing about 600 objects in one shortish review doesn’t leave all that much room for reflecting on its entirety —  but I will post a few choice works from it here. That is  Drossos P. Skyllas’s Young Girl with a Cat above and at right are four naive Biblical works by Oscar De Mejo. At MAM, they are shown all in a row, filling a wall, but I split them here to let you see them at a reasonable size. (I wish they were sharper…) At the very bottom is a spot showing work by Albert Zahn, the bird man of Door County.

You can see other images from the museum here.

MAMdeMejo2Milwaukee’s folk art collection, begun with the gift of two paintings in 1951, revved up in the ’60s and it is one of the things that makes Milwaukee distinctive. It’s not a cookie-cutter museum, and you don’t mind — at least I didn’t — that there’s no van Gogh, no Caravaggio, no Eakins, no etc. etc. That’s because Milwaukee has unique aspects to its collection — it has 23 marvelous Georgia O’Keeffe’s, 14 Gabriele Munters, 43 Emil Noldes, etc., plus wonderful examples from German painters, reflecting the city’s heritage, and excellent European and American decorative arts that one does not see everywhere else. Yes, it has paintings and sculptures by masters like Homer, Warhol, etc. but you would probably not travel to Milwaukee to see them. You should travel to Milwaukee to see those other things.

As I and others have complained, not enough museums develop specialties like this (here’s another that is).

birdman

Photo Credits: Courtesy of MAM (top); all the rest by me

 

 

Unconventional Partnerships: Let’s Have More

I’ve had occasion recently to review the forward exhibition schedules of museums across the country, and I’ve been noticing something: Many museums seem more open to partnering on exhibitions with a wider variety of “venues,” as we sometimes term the locations of special exhibitions.

In the old days, art museums operated almost always within their own strata of peers. The Metropolitan Museum* would work with, say, the Louvre or the Art Institute of Chicago, but not with, say, the Joslyn Museum in Omaha. The Joslyn had nothing that the Met wanted, the theory went, so why send its goodies to Nebraska? I explained some of this in an Arts & Leisure section cover at The New York Times back in 1996: Have Show, Will Travel (Within Limits). It contained this passage:

…Museums clearly use their works of art as cards to play, to win a stop on a show’s tour or to ease the borrowing of some work they want. Indeed, when curators plot shows, part of the job is to know which museums have the essential paintings and whether they will merely lend them or will want to play host.

“One of the prime things in the museum world is your key lending pieces,” said Mr. [David] Ross [director] of the Whitney. “The organizing museum doesn’t make decisions about a tour until it decides which museums it has to get loans from.”…

That principle is still in operation, but it has been declining in power for years and now — while trading cards are still important — the seriousness of a show, the reputation of the organizing curator, and local audience now come into play more frequently. And museums seem to be much more open, less conscious of whether a potential partner has the proper prestige. That’s how the Denver Art Museum, lacking Impressionist paintings until a recent gift, was able to organize Becoming van Gogh. (Not that it was easy.)

cezanne-ex-pmaSo I have noted these partnerships, among many others:

  • The Milwaukee Museum of Art with the Pompidou Centre on a coming retrospective of Kandinsky;
  • the Met and the Denver Art Museum on The American West in Bronze;
  • the Cleveland Museum’s Wari: Lords of the Ancient Andes went not only to the Kimbell but also to the NSU Museum of Art in Fort Lauderdale;
  • The Barnes Foundation is collaborating with the Art Gallery of Hamilton on The World is An Apple: The Still Lifes of Paul Cézanne; 
  • LACMA is sending its  California Design, 1930 to 1965, to the Peabody Essex;
  • LACMA is collaborating with Kunsthaus Zürich and the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts on Expressionism in Germany and France: From Van Gogh to Kandinsky;
  • The Barnes Foundation, the Parrish Art Museum, and NSU Museum of Art (again) collaborated on a retrospective for William Glackens.

This is a welcome and important development. American museums need to share their collections with others that have less whenever it’s appropriate. That is how we will gain audiences — when people in art-poor cities can see for themselves what makes art great.

Photo Credit: Cézanne’s Still Life with Apples and a Glass of Wine, to be shown at the Barnes; Courtesy of the Barnes 

*I consult to a Foundation that supports the Met

The Best Artistic Response To “Monuments Men”

MM_StJohnBaptist-213x300“The Monuments Men,” George Clooney’s movie supposedly based on Robert Edsel’s book (see this previous post for the real story-teller), is not doing well in the eyes of critics. The Washington Post’s Philip Kennicott pretty much eviscerated it. Metacritic figured that, all told, movie critics rates it 52 out of 100.

But of course, even before the movie made its debut, museums tried to figure out how to capitalize on the publicity it would get. Nothing wrong with that. Of those I’ve seen, I like what the Minneapolis Institute of Arts is doing best of all. MIA has created a self-guided tour of the nine objects in its collection that were rescued by the Monument Men and Women. According to the release:

The tour begins on the third floor with the rare Renaissance bust of St. John the Baptist [below, right, today, and in recovery, at left] acquired by the MIA last year, which was looted by the Nazis and rescued by the Monuments Men in 1945. Other artworks on the tour include paintings by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Johannes Lingelbach, Ernest Ludwing Kirchner, Lyonel Feininger, Willem de Poorter, and Pierre-Paul Prud’hon, as well as a statue by Adam Lenckhardt and a dreidel with a remarkable story of survival. 

St_JohntheBaptist-283x300The tour also highlights two Monuments Men who came to work at the MIA after the war: Richard S. Davis, who served as senior curator from 1946 to 1956 and as director from 1956 to 1958, and Harry Grier, who served as assistant director from 1946 to 1951.

Why I like it best is obvious — it focuses attention on the art, and it draws people into the permanent collection galleries. The MIA is also blogging about the Monuments Men tour (first installment), with the stories behind each art work.

What’s up at other museums?

Those are a few  of the many, probably.

In an ideal world, the MIA and the others would have done this when The Rape of Europa documentary was released years ago, telling the real story. But then, of course, fewer people might have paid attention. The way of the world.

Photo Credits: Courtesy of the MIA