Since January, I have been busy with graduating with a BA in Art History from Hunter College, establishing a new business with Yaron, my husband and partner, and forwarding most of my physical (and often also my mental) energy towards the creation of Peanut - our soon to be first child.

Being pregnant, I developed an interest in, well, how pregnant women are represented in art. To be honest, it all started in the fall semester, when I was working on a paper about Gustav Klimt’s loverly piece Hope II (MoMA) and came across some interesting pieces of information about the subject. It seems that while fertility and the female body, as artistic subjects, are very popular throughout art history, the pregnant body did not get as much attention. It is only in recent years that imagery of it started popping up more frequently.

In ancient art, the fertile female body, related to beliefs and worship, was a very popular subject. Even the not-artistically inclined among you are probably familiar with the Venus of Willendorf, a piece dating back to 24,000 BCE (and featured in even the most basic of art history lessons). Only 4 inches (11 cm) tall, this little lady is one of the world’s most familiar pieces of art thanks to her engorged fertile organs. She is, in every sense of the word, a symbol. She is not a representation of a woman but of her fertility. She could be pregnant, but that is clearly of lesser importance to her other attributions.

Venus of Willendorf, The Vienna Natural History Museum

Through the centuries, artistic representations of men took central stage, while those centering around the female body were treated as objects. The art world was dominated by male figures who, for one reason or another, created countless representations of women and their children but hardly any of women with child. Other than a single example of a portrait by Raphael, pregnant women are pretty much missing from Italian Renaissance.

Raphael, La Dona Gravita , Galleria Palazzo Pitti, Florence

In Northern Renaissance, Dutch artist Vermeer, who was well known for his domestically natured portraits, created a painting titled Woman in Blue Reading a Letter, also a rare example from the period and area.

Vermeer, Woman in Blue Reading a Letter, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

It was not until modernity that the image of a pregnant woman became a more familiar sight in the landscape of the art world. In my research of Hope II, I found that there is an immediate connection between the representation of a pregnant woman and Klimt’s interest in Art Nouveau styles. You see, Art Nouveau centers around the decorative and the feminine. It brings their domestic nature into the public sphere by representing them as art. Klimt, surrounded by and appreciative of women his whole life, gave them center stage in his artistic career as well, bringing the private into the public.

Klimt, Hope I, The National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa.

When it was first exhibited, Hope was considered highly controversial, due to its explicit nudity and the direct gaze of the model. Her belly jots out as she stands in profile, her fertility is unquestioned. Whenever I look at this piece, it makes me wonder about other representation of fertility - through engorged organs and portrayals of mother and child. Why were there hardly any representations of pregnant women? Is this not the very hight of ones fertility?

Klimt’s celebration of fertility wasn’t long lived as his first child died in infancy. His fascination with the topic, however, did not suffer. Feeling the direct relationship between the slow formation of life and the swiftness of death, Klimt inserted his images of pregnancy with signs of death. These are visible in Hope as well as in Hope II, which he created a few years later.

Klimt, Hope II, Museum of Modern Art, New York.

This image is chock full of meanings and symbolic elements. Being pregnant, in this case, is a condition that doesn’t begin and end with a woman’s womb but envelopes the entire body and soul, surrounding one’s entire being. It contains fear as well as hope and as we can see in the woman’s expression, creates a deep connection between a woman and her inner self.

Throughout modernity, which was very male-dominated in nature (the first half of the 20th century seems to have been all about masculinity and men desperately wanting to prove theirs), the female body was just as objectified as it has been in previous centuries, perhaps even more at times. In the art world, it was treated as a beautiful object, much like a landscape or a still life. Contemporary art, however, embraced ideas of feminism and the female body as a legitimate subject, rather than object. One artist who chose to explore the representation of the human body, is Ron Mueck.

Ron Mueck, Pregnant Woman, National Gallery of Australia, Canbara.

A hyper-real figural sculptor, Mueck creates human bodies that are very real in their visuality, but at the same time step away from reality - they are always a smaller or larger than real life. This Pregnant Woman is feeling her pregnancy through every inch of her body, and casts it directly onto her viewer. Standing at 8 feet tall, with her eyes closed, she enables the viewer to circulate her and investigate the physicality of being pregnant. The inner connection that was established between herself, her body and her growing baby is as palpable as it is in Klimt’s Hope II, perhaps even more so due to her size and free-standing nature.

Looking at all the images above, they all seem to communicate more of motherhood than many of mother and child imagery I know. However, if I were to produce one convincing example of motherhood represented in a mother and child imagery, I would most probably use this one, also by Mueck.

Ron Mueck, Mother and Child, Bayerische Staatsgemaeldesammlungen, Munich.

Nice Things I’ve Seen

This year, I used winter break to visit family and friends in Israel. My birthplace, Kibbutz Hatzor and favorite city of Tel Aviv tend to turn very beautiful in the Mediterranean winter. The light changes and makes colors sharper and clearer, especially after it rains. Tel Aviv also has a beautiful balance between old and new. It has a tendency for nostalgically preserving past elements while constructing the new. The ports of Jaffa and Tel Aviv have been renovated over the last few years and are a perfect example of this old-new balance.

Jaffa Port.

Tel Aviv Port.

Heck, just a walk down the busy Dizingoff street on a sunny and pleasant winter day tends to supply one with sights of beautiful Bauhause houses and new construction using the old as base. The fact that it is all done in carefree (or perhaps careless) and uniquely israeli work methods (see below photo) just adds to the fun…

They have their ways…

The new is inside the old.

When I left Tel Aviv for NYC, the city was a young, happening, ever busy, never sleeping, cultural breeding ground with a certain dirty charm to it. Three and a half years later, it managed to retain all of the above, adding an awakened appreciation for the beauty of the city, which had been covered with dirt, smog and frankly, just too much 1960’s concrete construction and is now starting to show itself. Apart from the city being cleaner, there are scores of young designers and creators who are celebrating the uniqueness of it all, mainly by following the original Bauhause intention of simple, stripped lines.

The Tel Aviv skyline is unique and contains many shapes and sizes against a predominantly blue sky. Having a ball with this is Eran Manor, the man behind Urban Outlines, who manages to bring the eternal beauty of the city to the front through a few simple lines and a limited palette of colors. His choice of taking the people out of the frame and concentrating only on the buildings and their immediate surroundings is necessary to maintaining the beauty. 

Eran Manor, Urban Outlines: Ehad HaAm Street.

Eran Manor, Urban Outlines: Bograshov Street.

Eran Manor, Urban Outlines: Levanda Street.

I know that Israel is a problematic subject to bring up. There are many elements related to my birth state that are at the center of many current heated discussions, but they don’t belong here. In this particular venue, I wish to only relate to the beauty that can be found wherever you go, be it a slum in Rio de Janeiro, down a shiny avenue in New York or in an ally of a thousand year-old Mediterranean port town. When I go to visit Israel, I try to strip it from all of its problematic elements and look at it as a place of constant change and creation. This does not mean I forget all of its problems (there are simply too many of them for me to do that), it just means I put them to the side for a few days and try to absorb it as it is.

Anyway, now that I’m a couple of weeks into the semester, it is time to exercise and flex those cells and write a post. What I wanted to address this time is the old story of East-coast art

Andy Warhol, Edie Sedgwick and the Empire State Building, 1965, David McCabe, Collection of the Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh.

Vs. West-coast art.

Ed Ruscha, Standard Station, 1966.

Recently, My darling husband and I went on a long weekend in San Francisco. While we were there we visited galleries and the SFMoMA and what we saw only strengthened what I already knew - that there is a massive difference, not only between the subjects and mediums east and west coast artists seem to choose, but also between what is shown, especially when it comes to museums. The SFMoMA Anniversary show is full of mainly local artists, most of whom, I am sad to say, I’ve never heard of before coming there. That is purely my fault for not taking a more avid interest before, but it is also something you don’t really hear about, going to school in New York. We were taught the minimum - about how Andy Warhol’s first gallery show was in LA, about Ed Ruscha, Hockney and about Womanhouse, all within the boundaries of half a class dealing with late Modern Art.

This made me think of how much, even as an art student in New York, I am not really exposed to. On paper, there is so much to see in New York, so many places that expose us to the best (and worse) of the contemporary local art scene, so many places that display the best (and worse) of the art world over the last decades, centuries and millennia. All we have to do is get out there and see it, right? But we miss out on so much that is happening in other places, near and far. That is why, this year, my last year at school, I’ve set a goal for myself. I will be exploring as much art outside of New York as I possibly can.

But lets get back to San Francisco. The galleries in San Francisco seem to center around different kinds of artists and art. I’ve discussed this in a previous post - Between Illustration and Art and my visit there just made my opinion about these things stronger. While in New York, a gallery show of contemporary art is considered a success mostly if you’ve managed to shock the audience by creating a new medium out of your own bowl movements or whatever the homeless guy in the corner left behind, it seems that in San Francisco, and I suspect this is the case in LA as well, the emphasis is on innovation of a different kind.  There is less of a “shock me shock me” value and more of a basic “beauty of art” value to it. San Francisco has always been one to innovate, to start new movements and cultivate new thought and action.  The same is happening there with art - there is innovation, there is new thought, there are people who dare to deal with beauty, with the value of color and with a certain aesthetic - all things that I often miss in new East Coast art.

Here, take a look, you be the judge. These are some of my favorites from the trip. I am consciously excluding the SFMoMA from this - I feel that while the museum’s collection as it is presented in the 75th Anniversary show is quite amazing, what attracted me more in San Francisco were the small galleries, representing young contemporary artists who are the real innovators at the moment.

Joshua Petker, Untitled 1, Shooting Gallery, San Francisco.

Jessica Hess, Patek Ecklon, White Walls Gallery, San Francisco.

Sadly, White Walls and Shooting Gallery were closed prepping for new shows, so I only got to see what they had to offer online. I love the introduction of color.

Yosiell Lorenzo (Project Detonate), “Why Are You Wearing a Stupid Man Suit?”, inspired by Donny Darko, Gallery 1988, San Francisco.

Jeremiah Ketner, “Death Is Whimsical Today”, inspired by The Professional, Gallery 1988, San Francisco.

This little show and this brand new San Francisco extension of the LA Gallery 1988 was called Crazy 4 Cult and included little sculptured versions of cult movie figures. There were Big Lebowski Russian dolls, a wooden Goblin King from The Labyrinth and a Back to The Future Dr. Emmet Brown Vinyl Moony doll.

Kate-Eric, Bug War Over Blue Mountain, 2008, Frey Norris Gallery, San Francisco.

On the second floor of a magnificently tranquil and friendly Frey Norris Gallery, was this massive and so perfectly detailed piece. Kate-Eric are a due that produces some of what I see as the most innovative works available today, on both grand and small scales.

James Watts, Sky Fields, Sandra Lee Gallery, San Francisco.

This show, Profound Intimacy, at the Sandra Lee Gallery tapped into my emotion, and I can’t really tell why. Maybe it had something to do with the rust and the treatment of paint, maybe it had something to do with how the entire gallery was filled, looking almost like it had been invaded, with ruined with rusting bugs and tree limbs. In any case, this is someone to follow up on.

Eric Cone, Hold, Hespe Gallery, San Francisco.

Mimi Jensen, The Jester, 2007, Hespe Gallery, San Francisco.

The Hespe Gallery seems to be dealing mostly with hyper realistic and figurative painting and some photography. This, naturally, made it an immediate favorite for me.

That’s it for this post; I hope you enjoyed it and I would love to hear what you think and if you have anything to say. Leave a comment!

* O. Henry.

The 12 covers done so far.

Kruger being the famous of the artists who have participated in this project, her map seemed to cause some noticeable buzz on the web, with some hate and some love, as all internet buzzes go…

Barbara Kruger, Untitled (Tube Map), May 2010.

And this is the back.

A little while ago, a friend picked a few of those maps up for me at their origin. The proud owner of such maps and before they are framed and put on the wall (yep), I felt like sharing my thoughts on them.

Personally, I think that this is public art, transforming what usually goes on canvas or printed paper to a mass communication tool. Since art is a massive communication tool, they are the same to me, even if one sits in its uniqueness within the walls of an establishment and the other is printed in 15 million copies and has a high potential of confusing every tourist who is oblivious to it all.

Barbara Kruger’s art has always dealt with consumer culture and how those who live in it tend to express themselves. Aesthetic and straight-forward, her works have been highly popular from the start. To me, this project is a wink at those who tend to take the art world a tad too seriously, sometimes refusing to see the humor it can hold while managing to express an opinion on how this consumer world connects emotion to objects and places instead of self and others.

Other artists who have participated in the past include some very important ones as well:

Yinka Shonibare, Global Underground, June 2006.

Liam Gillick, The Day Before, January 2007.

Emma Kay, You Are In London, August 2004.

Gary Hume, Untitled, July 2005.

David Shrigley, Map of the London Underground, February 2006.

Jeremy Deller and Paul Ryan,
Portrait of John Hough, Transport for London’s longest serving member of staff - 45 years, July 2007.

Cornelia Parker, Underground Abstract, January 2008.

Pae White, Fragment of a Magic Carpet, Circa 1213, October 2008.

Paul Noble, Troubadour Carrying a Cytiole, March 2009. 

Mark Wallinger, Going Underground, May 2008.

Richard long, Earth, September 2009.

It seems that through the years there had been some inconsistency in publications of this wonderful project. I hope that Transport of London will continue pushing this project along and enlist plenty more known or unknown artist to do this. It might not be the “coolest thing”
to collaborate with institutions when dealing with public art and Street art might be “the thing” right now, but I do believe that this is a wonderful way to introduce art and artists to a range of public that would not normally be interested. It brings the beauty of art to a wider audience and that is a very important thing.

I would love to hear which cover you think is best or how you feel about this type of collaborations between artists and public institutions, Leave a comment below to join the discussion. 

Picasso in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (closed August 15th)
While there is another Picasso show in the city this past summer (MoMA), this was by far the best of the two. With an array of true masterpieces and many smaller pieces that by no means fall in quality from the larger or more famous, the show is very well set. Leading the visitor from one period to the next, from one form of creation to another his show seemed to hit the nail right on top of its head. Blockbuster shows tend to be very heavy on the visuals, giving the audience what sometimes is an overwhelming experience. I find these to be very disturbing, mostly on the eyes. Art should be displayed in a way that allows it to be experienced to its fullest. Pushing as many pieces as possible next to each other can sometimes be beneficial, but usually doesn’t go very well when the piece is perfectly capable of dominating a wall of its own. With two rooms of well spread oils and two of ever so fun aquatint etchings that worked so well when put close together (it reminded me of the way children’s art is presented at kindergartens, organized in rows on gigantic boards), the show was interesting to move through, never overwhelming. Though this show recently closed, I do hope that the few who read this little speck of Internet monologue had a chance to see it.

Blindman’s Meal - the sensitivity in this piece is mesmerizing. Not many pieces make me emotional as this one did.

Etching - amongst the many other etchings, this one caught my eye and wouldn’t let go. 

Doug and Mike Starn, Big Bamboo, The Roof of the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Since coming to New York three years ago, I’ve had the pleasure of visiting the roof of the Metropolitan Museum three times (I missed the Frank Stella roof piece of 2007). While the Koons works in 2008 were of mostly magnitude and the Roxy Paine Maelstrom was very beautiful but a little lost on the grey rooftop, this year’s Starn brothers installation is nothing short of magnificent. Constantly growing and changing throughout the show, this organism balances the complex realities of the city, in which nature is so important, yet so scares. The piece is a wonderful source of inspiration, evoking thoughts of size, of fragility and strength, of mastership and craftsmanship.

Big Bamboo - Walking through makes you feel small, yet part of this great organism.

Big Bamboo - on a beautiful Friday evening, with a drink in hand, you can’t help but appreciate the beauty of the piece and how naturally it seems to fit into the view.

Andy Warhol, The Last Decade, at the Brooklyn Museum -
A wonderful survey of late works by Warhol put together by the Milwaukee Art Museum, containing some incredible and pretty much all colossal pieces and encompassing collaborations between Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat, among others. There is much to be said about blockbuster shows such as this, that they are nothing but a money maker, that they are popularized, aiming more to the public common denominator, less to the artistic values. In this case, isn’t populism the whole point?  This is a very well curated show, though sometimes leaving the visitor to walk through vast empty museum spaces. Perhaps that is where its strength lies - the viewer gets his/her pallet cleaned between the different spaces, prepared for the magnitude of what is about to be revealed in the next room. My personal favorites are the below piece - Double Five Weightlifter and the various videos done for his TV show, showing off his great sense of humor on one end and the sheer seriousness he created them in on the other. As always, Warhol manages to fill a full spectrum and touch the widest audience possible. If that is not the points made against blockbuster shows and thrown right back in the face of the complainers, I don’t know what is. My thoughts - as a whole, this show is nothing short of a don’t miss.

Warhol, Double 5 Weightlifter.

Judy Chicago, The Dinner Party, at the Brooklyn Museum
If we are already at the Brooklyn Museum, we might as well stay for a while.
Judy Chicago’s The Dinner Party is probably forever embedded within every art history student out there. One of the most important pieces of feminist art in the 20th century and in general, it has a nice place in the pedestal of repeated pieces in art history classes, from a mention in Post-Impressionism to close to a complete class in Late Modern Art. In the case of this piece, though a specific place was dedicated to it within the museum, it now feel like it has been there for a while (there’s a smell…), the atrium that was once dedicated to it is now less than organized, hard to walk through and its closeness to the Kiki Smith show, which in my opinion is less that great takes away from it a little. Still, this is a great and extremely important piece that is a must. And hey, if you are already there for the Warhol show, you might as well pop through to see what all the fuss is about.

Chicago, The Dinner Party.

Bruce Newman, Days, at MoMA (closes on August 23rd)
First exhibited in the 2009 Venice Biennial, Days is a sound sculpture, Newman‘s piece makes use of a completely empty space on the MoMA’s third floor, taking over what was the space for the Tim Burton show a few months ago. Personally, the empty gallery space with the ultra aesthetic speakers and few bar stools for the tired helped me breath. Every other room at the MoMA is currently busy to the extreme (but we will get to that in part two), and walking into this room, even prior to experiencing the real effect of the sound, evokes Zen in my head. Later, walking between the speakers, a realization came over me of the amazing use of sound and the way the air becomes the piece right long with the viewer / participant. In this case, the image below will not be enough. One must go, listen while eliminating other senses and experience something different - a sculptural piece that is heard, not seen. Compared to the Tim Burton show, which was so highly enticing for every sense, and made use of every corner of this space, this is a very relaxing piece that allows room to breath. My favorite parts - people’s faces as they realize what they are walking through and the child’s voice, declaring the days of the week with schoolroom precision.

Newman, Days, Installation View.

Next week – part 2 of my summer treasures.

Living with a web designer for a husband, our visual library, just like our discussions about art and design, is a mix of Computer Arts and Art in America magazines, every discounted art or design Taschen book we can lay our hands on, visual dictionaries, art history textbooks and old auction house catalogues. A key player that is enjoyed by both of us is Hi Fructose magazine - a west coast publication that until recently was subtitled Under the Counter Culture and now dubs itself as a New Contemporary Art magazine.

True to its namesake, the publication presents the overly sweet, the saccharin, the borderline kitsch. The works presented are usually highly graphic, sometime computer generated art - what was considered a subculture of the art world until not long ago is now a bona-fide part of it.  As far away from what is considered the contemporary art world as these works are, they are completely legitimate and there are a number of galleries, mostly on the west coast, that deal only with this style. The big eyed creatures of Scott Musgrove and Mark Rayden, the Story teller pieces of Jonathan Wiener (Viner) and the dream / nightmare work of James Jean are highly recognized and respected works of art, leading the way to many more illustrators who are starting to make their mark.

Jonathan Viner, Trance. Painterly and literal.

If I were asked to describe the kind of art this magazine presents with two words, I would describe it as Literal art. Every piece has a story behind it and it is brought through with great detail. The visuals of these pieces often remind me of Takashi Murakami’s Super Flat Manifesto, where he went to great length explaining the theory behind flat Japanese art.  The flatness, he says, helps the artist tell a story, it keeps things simple and allows the eye to wonder through the different levels without distractions. This is where these pieces, tacky as they are at points, achieve their legitimacy as works of art.

James Jean, Sink 2. Subdued base for multi-layered piece.

Always a tad deformed, the animals and humans that rule this style (apart from a few, most artists that fit this category deal with figure and landscape, not shape or line) have long, swan-like necks, extended limbs and eyes are always accentuate by size or by being taken off completely. Hardly any of it is realistic in any way; it is dark, even to the point of being scary, giving access to the deepest corridors of their creator’s imaginative minds. If there is emotion, it comes out through the figure’s expressions, hand gestures, body language and surroundings, not through brushwork or medium. These works are usually clean and though they are painted on canvas in traditional methods, they have a highly graphical feel to them. If I expand their definition now, I’d have to say that they are literal in theme, combining Medieval and Pop Art aesthetics. 

I know, it seems a tad far-fetched to discuss this type of art in the context of such historical artistic step-stones, but take a longer, deeper look into these pieces. They are as symbolic-over-accurate and contain the same story telling quality medieval book illustrations and church pieces had, they are as graphic and culture driven as Pop Art was. These works are far beyond book and magazine illustrations, they go beyond the commercial and the album cover, they are Art in every sense of the word. 

Scott Musgrove, The Observers. Fantasy world gone pop.

Some would say that they are highly commercial works, appealing to a large common denominator, copied repeatedly and reproduced in mass quantities. Warhol’s works were treated in the same form. Much like these artists, Warhol was also first successful in Los Angeles, not in New York, where he was accused of exactly these crimes against the work of art.

James Jean’s Process Recess sketchbooks, which are practically copies of his Moleskins, are amazingly inspirational art books (I happen to own one), showing his mastership over form and body, giving the perfect background to his bigger works. Yes, he also paints on his friend’s food-trucks, blogs and promotes himself on Twitter - all the more fun for those who enjoy his work. Who said art should forever be serious and conventional? it is the sense of humor and unconventionality that brought us the greatest artist of the modern and contemporary art world, including several that I’ve written about in previous posts.

Mark Ryden, Fur Girl. A little sweet, a little dark.

Art might be many things, but above all, it is a form of expression. In my opinion, any form of expression that is created with knowledge, emotion, thought and history in mind, can be defined as art. I don’t feel that illustration needs to be separated unless it desires to be, when found in more commercial forms of publications. The aesthetics of most of these works is very high, they are considering everything from medium to canvas size, and pieces are created carefully to reach the highest level of quality. Leave conventions and pre-conceptions behind, take a good, long look and tell me - is it not art?

From five floors up MoMA, May 2010

Performance art has always been a riddle to me. It never had the same impact other forms and mediums like painting and sculpture had, never supplying the emotional reaction or the visual attraction I felt towards them.  Over the past year I’ve had a few chances of learning more about this form of art, of how it developed from a want of combining different forms of artistic activity into a new, exciting medium and I must say that the legitimacy of the first few years does not escape me. I can even say that though I’m really not a fan of Paul McCarthy’s work, I can categorize it as a form of expressionism acted out as some sort of tantrum.

You can almost feel it MoMA, May 2010

With this pre-conception of performance art, I approached The Artist is Present with some reproach. Actually, I was coming to the museum to see the William Kentridge show and thought that I will swing by the Marron Atrium, which was on the way, just to see what all the fuss was about and quiet my curiosity. Immediately magnetized by the atmosphere and by the presence of the artist and her sitter, I watched for little over an hour. Kentridge was pushed.

The process itself had an appeal MoMA, May 2010

The title of the show, though a touch self-empowering and in a way putting the artist on a pedestal, is more than appropriate in this case. The artist is present in every sense of the word - she is physically there, the atmosphere her performance evokes can be felt not only in the atrium but throughout the museum and the retrospective that is presented six floors above the artist herself ties everything together to show that this artist is a presence in the art world. 

Even sitting on the side-lines, the energy between sitter and artist is clear MoMA, May 2010

Standing and sitting on the sidelines for a while, I watched as each sitter connected with the artist, took in the emotional affect and then walked away, usually looking content. I was mesmerized, glued to the floor, unable, or more accurately - not wanting - to walk away.  A fellow viewer sparked a conversation about the effect the artist has over her sitters. We ended up agreeing that they are each in-love with her in their own way, that they take from her and she takes from them - energy, emotion, recognition and power.

Between sitters, a stretch MoMA, May 2010

And then it hit me. More than anything else, this show is about power. It deals with the power of the artist over the art world, over the viewer and over human nature. Art has a power over me, over others. It is usually an emotional more than physical power, but in the case of The artist is Present, the physical power was gaining strength over the emotional. Watching her stretch and silently moan between sitters, then walking through the retrospective, the physicality of the pieces is emphasized to the extreme. You can tell that the situations she puts herself into are not comfortable for her, that it takes its toll, yet her perseverance through every single piece is outstanding. She does what she has to do to have power over it, to complete each challenge and to create what ever it was she set out to create. This is also what gives her power over the art world - she is so invested in what she does and so original in her work, it puts her one level above others.

The strain is visible, especially when the last sitter had left and it was all over MoMA, May 2010

A final twirl to end the show (Thanks to Hyperellergic for the capture)

The bottom line is that this show, which was brilliantly curated by Klaus Biesenbach and magnificently re-preformed by other artists and performers, exercised every last bit of the artistic power it had over its viewer. It made you either hate or love it but I think it is safe to say no one felt bored by it.  It caused more reactions and the sort of noise only a really great art show can make, something I have not heard in a while.

I loved it. It made me think of creativity and of the limits and definition of art, as well as of the part some artists take within this ever-changing art world, sometimes successfully doing so for more than forty years. What can I say? I always fall for the shows that make me think, that make me feel, that have an impact.

Recognition
Mario Anelli documented the sitters and the artist throughout the show. His photographs captured the 1656 sitters, some more familiar than others to create an amazing piece in its own right, brilliantly using the museum’s flicker page to connect with those who wanted to feel from afar. This is a tiny sample of the fantastic work he did. A link to the flicker page can be found above.

The Artist

Some of the Reactions

A Few Familiar Faces

At the end of what was a very interesting month I landed an internship at a big auction house. Six month later, having learned a lot and feeling very much sobered about the realities of the auction house, I realized I had perhaps chosen the wrong path.  I enjoy art far too much to spend my time dealing with the little intricacies of the auction house.  Writing about art, spending time in its presence and constantly learning and reading about it is what I should be doing.  Turns out that hand gesture might have been reasonable.

The whole experience made me think of bad reputation auction houses have among others within the art world. Do they really deserve to be looked down upon and frowned at by the “real” art world folk? True, auction houses are known as the rich / obnoxious / spoiled brat (take your pick) that no one likes to deal with. It seems that artists, art historians and art lovers would rather handle things with dealers (just as bad as the auction house if you ask me) or directly with a gallery or an art consulting company (don’t even get me started). 

But it seems to me that there is more to it than just resentment to the character of the place and workers and the way business is done. After all, the auction house is aiming for the rich, it speaks their language and gives them the show they came for. Like any other business, it is there to care for itself, not for those who surround it.  I believe some of the resentment has to do with what comes through these auctions.  There have been comments about the quality of work that makes its way in. I must say that I agree that some of the works are of questionable quality, but the bottom line is that there are the occasional gems and that cannot be ignored.

Edvard Munch, Fertility, 1902.  Definitely a gem, did not reach its reserve, went back to owner.

Lately I have found myself attending more auction previews than galleries. The experience has been absolutely amazing.  Phillips de Pury had a magnificent Photography Auction in early April, with a massive catalogue of almost 300 pieces that included many familiar names (Sherman, Goldin, Mann, Arbus, Evans, Penn. Mapplethorp and Lachapelle) and some I’d never heard of (Japanese photographers of the 1950’s, a gem), almost all in fantastic quality.

Joseph Koudelka, Romania 1968, 1968. My personal favorite at this preview.

Burt Glinn, Andy Warhol in Manhole (Andy, Edie Sedgwick and Chuck Wein), 1965.  My all time favorite photo of Warhol.

At Christie’s, the latest two auction previews, Impressionist / Modern and Post War / Contemporary, displayed works from two great collections, Brody and Chrichton, including several masterpieces by some of the great artists of these periods. Think Klee, Warhol, Johns, Prince, Andre, Moore, Renoir, Degas, Munch and Picasso. And that is just a small sample…

Picasso, Bateliers Nus; Couple Nu; Buste de Femme Nue; Femme Nue au Panier de Fruit; Femme Assise aux Bras Crois’s; Vieillard Debout les Bras Crois’s. Lovely little things.

Renoir, Femme Nue Couchee, Gabrielle, 1903.  For me this was a major wow factor.

Carl Andre, Aluminum-Magnesium Alloy Square, 1969.  At the MoMA I almost missed it. Here it was impossible to do so.

Walking through the auction house galleries and halls made me think and gave me the chills. This is a chance to see works that may never be presented to the public again, passing from one private hand to the other. A fantastic example is the beautiful Picasso that recently sold for a record-breaking $106 million (premium included), thought to have been lost, since the last known photo of it was in black and white.

Picasso, Nude, Green Leaves, Bust, 1932.  A “once in a life-time” chance to see it was sadly only at the auction house.

Just last night, a living artist record was broken in the Christie’s Post War / Contemporary evening sale when a Jasper Johns Flag sold for $28.6 (premium included).  In this case, I tend to agree with Jerry Saltz, that this important piece, like many others, belongs on public view, not changing private hands. But, if they are destined to do just that, then attending the auction house gallery, sadly, is the only chance to bask in its wonder.

Auction houses may not be the ultimate art venue nor are they the favorite, but they give a chance to see something one would have not seen anywhere else (unless your super rich friends invite you to their home).  It is what it is, not a good reality, but one that us art lovers, scholars and practitioners cannot afford to look away from or down at. Next time you feel you’ve seen it all, check if the neighborhood auction house is previewing.

There are many works that revolve around presentation of self, of want and of need. There are many that speak to the art world as it has been represented in past Biennials.  It is mostly a thought-provoking show with some very interesting curatorial choices as most adjacent pieces speak and communicate with each other, either on the same ideas or on completely different ones.  There is a sense of relevance wrapping it all, as it seems, more than ever, that the art world is joining forces to get a message across. 

Since the show is not huge in volume and thanks to the quiet tones that pretty much control the displays, one can go through it without feeling visually overwhelmed.  It is very hard to pay attention to everything in one swing, especially if you are, like I was, on a timed schedule.  Take a few hours for it or plan two visits - trust me, it is worth it. 

Here are a few of my personal favorites so far:

Scott Short, Untitled (White), 2008.

Created by photocopying a craft page, then its copies over and over again this is essentially the “noise” created by the copier which Short later painted onto the canvas.  The abstract is essentially created by a machine, not from human emotion.  Short questions authorship and origin in ways that are refreshing and exciting.

Roland Flexner – Sumi Ink Drawing, SN70, 2006.

Flexner works in an old Japanese technique that involves ink, water and gelatin.  The result is a series of small, postcard-size, negative-looking, even extraterrestrial landscapes.  To me some of them are reminiscent of microscopic photos of viruses.  Exhibited in a large number and taking up a whole wall, they all evoke something in the viewer, calling to come closer as they take over your entire field of vision.

The Bruce High Quality Foundation, We Like America and American Likes us, 2010.

Created especially for the Biennial by this anonymous artists group, the piece is completely compiled of readymade materials, starting with the car and down to the YouTube videos that are screened on the windshield. Speaking to so many different aspects of the art world, in its historical and current modes, this work has been depicted by others as the one that pulls everything else on the show together, a description I will have to agree with. The 18 minute long video loop seems to nail people on the spot, using visuals, audio and memory to lure them in.

Storm Tharp, Jodie Jill, 2010.

Tucked away in a small side room on the second floor, these are easy to miss.  I found them because of the video that shares the room with them and could be heard from across the floor (an interesting curatorial choice, making use of every single space. Tharp works in a very interesting technique, starting with water, adding drops of ink and then creating the portrait.  The result, though sometimes not very complimenting to the sitter, is always impressive and in my opinion, so beautiful they almost brought me to tears.

There are many good art shows in New York at the moment (hopefully I can get to them all…) and it is sometimes hard to choose which one to pay attention to.  The Biennial is one that should not be missed.  I think it is refreshing, interesting and completely representing of the American Art world as it is today. Totally worth the visit.

Mike Bayne, Untitled (Nibourg), Oil on panel.

Bayne creates tiny, amazing oil paintings on wood. The sheer ability struck me and wouldn’t let go.

When the time came this year, I was ready for it. Twitter following several art blogs and the fair themselves, along with some galleries that make it their business to spread the word of art to the world, namely Jen Beckman’s 20x200 project; I was armed with a massive amount of information streaming to me live through my twitter account.  Out of the 11 fairs that were spread around the city, I made it to five, an impressive number by all accounts. I think. 

Making my way through Scope, The Armory and Volta on one day and the Independent and Pulse on the other, visuals were sometimes attacking the senses, sometimes soothing it. Good thing I had the 20x200 goody bag with its Visual Cleansing kit, because by the end of those days, I was in a massive visual overload. Maybe that’s why it has taken me so long to actually write about it.

There was a sense of delicate touch that could be found in each one of the fairs. A feeling that there was great effort, more than concept and style, that went into these works.  A real ability was making it clear to the viewer - these artists are masters at what they do.  My favorite fair was Pulse, where there was something truly fascinating and visually enticing happening around every corner.  My least favorite was The Armory, were it felt like a competition of trendiness and who can get more celebrities to come to their booth but there wasn’t really anything worth the hype.

Some of the works I liked best are already in the Visuallity  section, where I store things that make me visually happy, but I wanted to show a few more here. So here they are:

Emil Lukas, Represented by Hosfalt Gallery in San Francisco, Pulse Art Fair, 2010.

Reminding me of craft classes somewhere in the distant past, but with a hand full of vibrant colors, mixing together to create a beautiful visual that stimulates both eye and thought. 

Megan Greene, Represented by the Carrie Secrist Gallery in Chicago, Pulse Art Fair, 2010

Greene uses botanical and biological books to create elaborate images that span beyond the original, breaking into the flowers and birds, spilling the inner beauty out of the shell in an implosion of colors. The amazing detailed work pulls you in, forcing you to explore every last bit, afraid to miss out. 

Jorge Mayet, represented by the Horrach Moya Gallery in Spain, Pulse Art Fair, 2010

Mayet creates these wonderful falling apart, almost exploding mini bonsai gardens.  There is something so tranquil yet so disturbing about it, you almost feel like the ground beneath your feet is starting to fall apart as well. 

Andy Denzler, At the Scope art Fair, 2010

It is clear that Denzler has a talent for the figurative work, yet he chooses to give his work a finishing touch of a smudge. This reveals the different layers of the work and gives it an out-of-focus effect that makes it hard to pass by without noticing it. To me, this work contains plenty of unsolved emotion and denial, wrapped up with beauty that has no parallel. 

Claire Sherman, Represented by Kavi Gupta in Chicago, The Armory Show, 2010

Sherman builds her landscapes through clear, straight brush strokes.  The abstraction of nature into simple lines is almost linear and the use of color gives it all a glossy feel.  Though this is something I wouldn’t normally find myself attracted to (it is a little safe, after all), there is something very soothing about it, and I do find myself staring at it.

In the end, I feel that the fairs are extremely relevant in today’s art market, giving a chance for galleries and projects, big and small, to find new clients and make new business. That is also its problem.  It sometimes (mostly at the Armory) felt more like a trade fair, the only thing missing were some models trotting around wearing matching outfits to promote something. I liked it best at Volta and Pulse, where there was a feeling of something more artistic than commercial, where there was a connecting line that perhaps was not made out of the famous and controversial, but of what I mentioned before: artistry, mastership, talent.

Oh and here is the best thing that came out of it all is my Live With Art tote bag!

Recently, we went to see Slash, Paper Under the Knife, at the Museum of Art and Design.  Needless to say that this show was the perfect ground for us to get into this time-old discussion once more - is it art, craft or design?  The works displayed all dealt with at least one attribute of those realms, and were generally a mix between them.  Taking from the many paper handling techniques and probably inventing a few new ones, the pieces at the show showcased the transition this medium has made over the last few years: from works ON paper, to works that ARE paper.

This transition has been in the works for quite a while, it seems, as a simple search revealed that many galleries have organized group shows of artists who work with paper as a three dimensional medium, implementing new technologies or using their bare hands.  The flexibility of the medium, which allows one to cut, paste, color, puncture, layer, burn and more, creates shows that are generally diverse and always interesting. 

At the Slash show, the third in a series at MAD that explores materials and process, I could not escape the extraordinary delicate features, the sheer amount of detail and concentration it took to create each and every one of the works on display.  It has been a while since I have seen works that are so visually enticing and so charged with energy, both emotional and physical. The way they dealt with the given material - paper - echoed craft (little intricate paper puppet theater-like works by Andrea Dezso), industrial design (Ferry Staverman’s figures and Sangeeta Sandrasegar’s chairs) and and artistic (Kara Walker’s shadow figures) values.  This is not to say that all works did not have an artistic value to me, they all did.  They just resonated differently within my own private visual world.

Each and every piece in this exhibit had meaning and oozed the measures it took to create it. My absolute favorites were:

Adam Fowler’s Untitled (74 layers) shown here: Untitled (64 layers) which I wish I had the patience to do.

Georgia Russell’s The Story of Art, which I think every Art History student can relate to in one way or another.

Mia Pearlman’s Inrush, a prime example of her work, which I absolutely love and have been trying to follow.

Rob Carter’s magnificent video Stone on Stone that I just couldn’t take my eyes off.

The show is on till April 4th, so if you haven’t yet, go see it. It is a prime example of how the lines are dissolving, perhaps already gone.

As someone who remembers things visually, never by name (ask me for my favorite movie, I will tell you what it’s about but I will probably not be able to tell you what it was called), I get that with works of art that I’ve seen in the past.  It happened to me this week as I was sitting at the doctor’s office and suddenly I had an image in my head of a piece I have seen in a show at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem almost 4 years ago. In my head was a very clear visual of it, though I could not for the life of me, shake me as hard as you might, remember who the artist was or what was the name of the exhibit. 

The next step (which in spite of its frustrating appearance is my favorite part) was spending an hour and a half sidestepping through Google and the less-than-informative museum website, eventually finding the artist who made it.  All I had to go by was my memory of this being a contemporary Japanese artist group show set a few years ago and where it was. Here are my research results:

The artist is Motoi Yamamoto, born and raised in Japan, active within the Japanese contemporary art scene.  He was featured in the recent annual show at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo (MOT), where he created something very similar to the piece he presented at the show in Jerusalem. 

Yamamoto creates his work using salt. In Jerusalem (2006) Tokyo (2010) and many other locations in between, he used the salt to make labyrinths. Constructed of lines, these labyrinths spread out and create shapes and they stop suddenly or softly dissolve into the floor. His other salt sculptural works include complete walls, super delicate leaves, boats, stairs, and complete structures made of or filled with salt. What he does is really quite amazing, as he uses this simple mineral, so receptive to the human hand playing with it. His work is extremely delicate, painstakingly done with amazing attention to details and wonderful sensitivities of subjects.

The thing that made me remember the magnificent piece exhibited in Jerusalem is the way I physically reacted to it. In great quantities, salt can play with the air in a room. Standing close to this piece, one is mesmerized by the lines of the labyrinth and their mountain like origin. As you stand there, you can start feeling your body react to the salt - your nose burns, your eyes water. You can say that the beauty of the piece made me cry.  Maybe that is why I remembered it, on a random day, in a random doctor’s office in Manhattan, NY.   

Though this was not my first encounter with old photography, it was certainly the most important and the one that made me love it so much. I fell in love with gradient, heavy, 3200 ASA photography, and started dreaming about owning my own reflex camera. In the mean time, I was using this old catalog as an inspirational tool.  With photos spanning from the early 1900’s through documentation of WWII and portraits of icons like Marilyn Monroe and Pablo Picasso, to the contemporaries of the time, there was nothing better.  Every time I got stuck and needed to fuel up my creative juices, I would turn to it.  Though most of the time the end result looked nothing like what had inspired it, nothing would get me going better than this old thing. 

Within the 555 photos, by 264 photographers, were a few that never failed to inspire. One of them, which will end up inspiring through the years, was a photo by Gordon Parks, titled: Red Jackson in The Harlem Gang Story, from 1948.

Knowing nothing about the photographer or the photograph itself (Google was a far away dream when I was in high-school), all I saw was a high contrast, heavily gradient photo.  The subject was of a young man, a cigarette dangling from the side of his mouth, standing at the window. To me, it spoke of poverty, of a rough patch of life and of the dedication and determination to whatever he is looking at through that broken window.  It was not until recently, that I had a chance to get to know the photographer and the real meaning of the photo. 

Gordon Parks, known for his documentation of the poor black communities, was the first to bring awareness to the subject. He worked at a time when photographers used their documentation abilities to show the American public what the real America looks like. His photos tell a story. Each its own chapter, they become a complete account of a situation when put together.  This photo is a part of a series made to document a Harlem gang for Life Magazine. There is something unique in this photo, as it manages to convey not the ruthless, strong, rebel gang leader, but a young man, old beyond his years, tired of fighting, almost disgusted by it.

16 years later, the catalog is falling apart at the seams. I still take it out carefully every once in a while, when I need something to jump start my visual thinking. It still holds most of my favorite sources of inspiration, though Park’s photo is not in there anymore. I think it got torn out at some point, probably from overuse, lost somewhere between Tel Aviv and New York. Luckily enough, I was able to find it in Taschen’s 20th Century Photography (Museum Ludwig Cologne), so its inspirational power over me still exists.

As someone who has been involved with art in one way or another since I was a child, this blog will be about this crazy little thing I have for the amazing, ever changing world of creative thought and act.  Living in New York allows me to surround myself with everything that is art and culture related.  That, along with an inspiration pallet spanning from Edward Munch to Georgia O’Keefe, from early 20th century photography to James Jean and High Fructose magazine, will be the fuel for this little writing adventure.  There is so much to write about, not only about art but also about things that make me happy or spark my imagination. With a very interesting winter season coming to an end with a blast of art fairs, spring and summer should be nothing short of awesome, hopefully supplying me with much material.

Many thanks to my wonderful husband, Yaron Schoen, who put all of this together into a lovely website he designed, coded and worked on through the wee hours of the morning. Don’t know where I would be without you, love.

Here’s to good luck and good art.

Enjoy.