Real Clear Arts

Judith H. Dobrzynski on Culture

Voyeurism At The Balenciaga Exhibition

Summer has simply sped by and I haven’t even really gone on vacation yet (that’s coming up at the end of September). There was that trip to London (and Malta) in May, as you may recall, which now seems so long ago. But I did intend to write here about my visit on that trip to the Victoria and Albert Museum, which was holding members’ preview days for Balenciaga: Shaping Fashion.

I took a lot of pictures with an eye to sharing them here, and was worried that the show might be over. Surprisingly, as I was there on May 26, Balenciaga is not only still on, it runs until next February 18. That’s quite a long time for special exhibition–as confirmed by a look at the other special shows at the V&A. I’m not sure why.

For the most part, I liked the exhibition and the way it was displayed, as you can see here.

Among the pluses: beautiful display of many path-breaking garments that made the case for a comment quoted there by Christian Dior: “Haute Couture is like an orchestra whose conductor is Balenciaga. We other couturiers are the musicians and we follow the direction he gives.” Plus, along with the now common additions to garments of archive sketches, patterns, photographs, fabric swatches, the V&A included some x-rays of Balenciaga’s constructions (at left). Even the curators could not explain how some costumes worked before seeing the X-rays. And the X-rays are even more sorely needed by many people today.

As the The Guardian wrote:

For the fashion nerd, much of the appeal of Balenciaga is in its unique internal construction. Clients were known to send dresses back pleading that they were impossible to pee in. Museum curators have admitted to leaving pieces hanging in archives for decades after being unable to decide which way up they should go. “It is difficult to communicate to a modern audience how much work went into these clothes, because if you buy fast fashion, you have no concept,” says [Cassie] Davies-Strodder. Her team have addressed this by “exploding” dresses, so that a Tulip dress is displayed on a mannequin next to an X-ray of its construction, which immediately unpacks the secrets of its complex seaming.

On the other hand, the show also included the now nearly requisite opportunity to try something on (at right)–in this case a garment that could be a skirt or a cape. While I was there, people mostly passed up the opportunity–which in my experience at other, similar stations is typical–but no harm done, really. The Guardian liked it, praising it as a selfie opportunity:

…visitors can leave with a Balenciaga selfie: two mock-ups of a multifunctional piece from 1956 which can be worn as either an evening skirt or a cape are laid out for trying on, against a mocked-up wall of the 50s salon.

My larger concern was that, for so important a designer–“Balenciaga has been one of the greatest influences of fashion in the world,” as a quote from Josep Font, creative director of Delpozo, says in a statement on the wall to the exhibition’s upper floor (and there similar quotes from other fashion greats upstairs)–the actual number of his creations is small, compared with previous fashion exhibitions I’ve seen. The entire upstairs galleries are devoted to his admirers.

I personally would have rather seen more by the master. Here are some exhibition shots from both floors. You can tell which are the master’s.

 

 

Should Museums Compare and Contrast Cultures?

It seems to be a trend these days for art museums (and some galleries) to mix and match cultures and, sometimes, time periods. Sometimes, this is about breaking down so-called false hierarchies in art history (I do not believe they are always false), sometimes it’s about appealing to new audiences, and sometimes it’s simply about trying something new and keeping things interesting.

Two come immediately to mind: a few years ago, the Brooklyn Museum devoted a central first-floor gallery to a mix of objects from many departments, meant as an introduction to the museum’s collections. Nice try, but I think it was confusing and a failure. Then there was Unfinished at the Met Breuer–to some a success and to some a failure.

Now the Bode Museum in Berlin is taking advantage of a reshuffling of museum spaces to present Beyond Compare: Art from Africa in the Bode Museum.  Opening in October, it is one of a few exhibitions organized as dialogues, gathered under the rubric “On the Way to Humboldt Forum.”

From the press release:

For the first time the sculptural traditions of Africa and Europe will come together in a ‘conversation of the continents’ on the Museumsinsel Berlin. Beginning in October 2017 over 70 major works of African sculpture from the Ethnologisches Museum (Ethnological Museum) will go on display in the Bode Museum. Art from western and central Africa meets masterpieces from Byzantium, Italy, and central Europe. Never before have the sculptural traditions of these two continents been compared so extensively.

The Bode plans to make about 20 juxtapositions, some in its permanent galleries and some in a special gallery. They will “address major themes of human experience, such as power, death, beauty, memory, aesthetics, and identity.” For example, a putti by Donatello will be side-by-side with a Benin princess. A Romanesque figure of Christ will be side-by-side with a large Ngil mask from the Fang region of Gabon or Cameroon–“both present awe-inspiring images of judges.” Here are those two–you can see a few more juxtapositions at the link above.

Quoting from the organizers: First. Michael Eissenhauer, Director-General of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin and Director of the Sculpture Collection and Museum of Byzantine Art:

The preparations for the move to the Humboldt Forum offer us a unique opportunity to place the non-European holdings of the Staatliche Museen in dialogue with other works, reaching across the boundaries that traditionally divide the collections.

And Julien Chapuis, director of the two:

The stimulating interplay between the African sculptures and our own collection not only promises to be a feast for the senses, but will also lead to fundamentally new insights.

I can’t tell, without seeing more, whether this exhibit will be enlightening or a gimmick (here are a few more Bode_Afrika Images). I think you have to be there. But I agree that an opportunity has arisen and shouldn’t be lost.

Photo Credits: © Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Skulpturensammlung und Museum für Byzantinische Kunst, Antje Voigt

How To Create An Art-Lover

While at the Guggenheim Museum yesterday, seeing Visionaries: Creating A Modern Guggenheim, I witnessed an awesome sight–but it wasn’t the art. It was a little girl, still in a stroller, with a sketchbook in hand, attempting to copy a painting by Bonnard. Her mother (presumably) was sitting nearby, but the girl was working on her picture alone.

Initially, though charmed by the pair, I walked by.

But I could not let it pass: I got out my cell phone and snapped a couple of shots. One shows the scene pretty well. Not wanting to invade their privacy–or spoil their moment–I shot it from the back.

I had planned only to share the picture with my Facebook friends. But there it was been liked a lot, and generally brought agreement. One friend wrote that she used to take her kids to the Met  and inform that “they would have to pick one picture in each gallery that they wished they could have, and they had to look at it very closely and tell me what it was about it that made them want it. This could take 5 or even 10 minutes.”

I then wrote about studies I know of in music that have determined that people who learned to play a musical instrument as a child are far more likely to grow up and go to classical music performances than kids who did not. Exposure itself–i.e., going a a concert with a parent–had little or no impact. But playing a musical instrument did. I’d put sketching, as this child is, or being asked to articulate the wonders of an art work, in the same category. Both involve participation.

Taking school groups to museums is laudatory, and welcome, but imho it’s not enough to create lasting art-lovers and lifelong museum-goers.

This mother and child are a great inspiration. And they were having a good time, too!

And, of course, the art was pretty awesome, too.

UPDATE: A friend, just returned from London, snapped this shot at the Tate Britain. Not quite as good as sketching, but looking nonetheless. There is hope!

 

 

 

 

Kusama Exhibit Is A Wow–And More

Yayoi Kusama is one of those artists whose work is easy to love. Although she made it (or much of it) as therapy for herself–beset from early on with mental health issues and thoughts of suicide–her works come across to viewers as exuberant and bedazzling. And in many cases, fun–even as they are thought-provoking.

Last week, I was lucky enough to arrive in Seattle (on an unrelated business trip) just as her show at the Seattle Art Museum, Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors, was about to open. I got a press preview, which means that the galleries were mostly empty when I was there. That’ll be in distinct contrast to the experiences of many: advance ticket sales for the exhibit are completely sold out, despite the steep cost of $34.95. A limited number of tickets are available now only on a first-come, first-served daily basis. And the museum has added Sunday night tickets for members only.

This exhibit was organized and appeared first at the Hirshhorn Museum and focuses, at Kusama’s request, on her mirrored rooms, according to the Seattle Times review. (The Times also made the show front page news on the day before the review (at right), for which all art-lovers must be grateful.)

These rooms are important to her. Here’s an explanation from WSJ. Magazine:

Kusama conceived of these installations in part as an opportunity to savor the supreme vanity of regarding one’s likeness reflected endlessly.

“I’ve always been interested in the mystique that a mirrored surface presents,” says Kusama. “In my mirror rooms, you see yourself as an individual reflected in an expansive space. But they also give you the sensation of cloistering yourself in another world.” Often lit up by myriad multicolored LED lights (earlier iterations of the rooms from the ’60s were simpler affairs, filled with polka-dot patterns and phallic, tuberlike soft sculptures), the rooms are meant to evoke a cosmic feeling of being an individual within a multitude—as planet Earth is “like one little polka dot, among millions of other celestial bodies.”

Still, as the Seattle review noted,

There are [also] surrealistic paintings from the 1950s, soft sculptures from the 1960s, Joseph Cornell-inspired collages from the 1970s, very recent work, and documentary photos and ephemera, all of which gloriously establish Kusama’s unique place in contemporary art history.

Agreed, and I loved it all! I had not seen her watercolors and gouaches before, and they are intriguing. (I’d post one, but the only one I took did not come out clearly enough to be useful as an illustration.)

Seattle is trying hard to prevent any incidents of damage, as happened at the Hirshhorn, when a pumpkin was broken by someone taking a selfie in the room called “All the Eternal Love I Have for the Pumpkins” (above left). At SAM, visitors enter that room along with a staff member. This will slow things down, adding to the waits at the rooms, but it’s necessary.

A few more pictures:

detail

One aspect has gotten less attention than I would have expected, given today’s emphasis on participatory art. Near the end of the Seattle show, there’s an “obliteration room.” It began as an all-white room, filled with furniture, and each visitor is given polka-dot stickers to place anywhere in the room–floor, walls, goblets on the dining table, etc. (label at right). Again, quoting the Seattle Times,

Kusama has said that her repetitive processes — covering everything with dots or sewing hundreds of fabric forms, for example — are acts of “self-obliteration.” She has described her labor-intensive methods as “art-medicine.”

I disagree, strenuously, with those who cannot consider this art, who think it is art for children, who say it lacks meaning, who say it is mere spectacle. Several pieces are, for me, quite eloquent. Maybe a trying a little harder to understand Kusama’s art is in order. Art can be enjoyed and consumed on many levels, and sometimes its impact is not clear until long after one leaves an exhibition.

 

What A Way To Go! Fantasy Coffins from Africa

It may be summer, but it’s school days at Jack Shainman Gallery in Kinderhook, and the revelation this year is–fantasy coffins. These fascinating works, three made by a Ghanaian artist named Paa Joe, are unlike most you’ve ever seen. They’re the centerpiece of The School‘s summer exhibition, which opened Saturday (June 24).

Called abebuu adekai, the coffins are a national tradition, a celebration of death and the afterlife of those who have died–thus, the sarcophagi represent the interests of the deceased. Through they are made for a purpose, they can ascend into the realm of folk art and perhaps beyond, depending on the eye of the beholder. The gallery’s press release says that the coffins, which used to be used only for chiefs and priests, have grown in popularity and are now attracting the attention of contemporary art museums and galleries.

Here’s one:

Shainman’s biggest find, perhaps, was El Anasui, and he had a piece on view at The School as well:

And there were plenty of other artists to see there. Shainman mixed contemporary works with older art.

But,  mainly, I am writing about The School because, like Magazzino in my last post, it adds to the art attractions in the Hudson Valley, and therefore likely expands the interest in art–it certainly gives art more exposure.

Here are two more views: