"Blue Rider" at Tate Modern

 

Wassily Kandinsky liked riders, Franz Marc liked horses, both loved blue. The name Blue Rider (Blaue Reiter) was coined by the two artists over coffee at Marc's summerhouse in Sindelsdorf according to Kandinsky. The seemingly casual encounter became historic as the name intended for the title of a publication and related exhibitions, would eventually designate a tightknit group of artists based in Munich and their transnational connections from France, Italy, East Europe to the United States at the beginning of the 20th century. Preceded by the N. K. V. M. ( Neue Künstlervereinigung München), the Blue Rider's gestation was marred by broken friendships and reputations in the midst of a turbulent pre-war period, a flourishing time for German expressionism. The publication of the almanac in 1912 concretized the ideas behind the inclusive Blue Rider reaching to painters, sculptors, musicians, composers, poets, dancers, art critics, writers and ensured its posterity. Gabriele Münter, a pillar of the group, became the guardian of its legacy hiding documents and works of art considered degenerate during two world wars. Upon her 80th birthday in 1957 she donated one thousand pieces to the Lenbachhaus. Most of the one hundred and thirty rarely seen works gathered for the exhibition Expressionists: Kandinsky, Münter and The Blue Rider are drawn from the collection. Paintings, photographs, documents, sculptures and personal objects fill twelve spacious rooms at Tate Modern in London.

Wassily Kandinsky was forty years old when he painted Couple on a Horseback (1907). Glowing in the dim light, the enchanting work illustrates an early period of the painter who drew his themes from Russian folklore and his memories from a previous trip in a Northern Province of the Russian Empire. Nearby, Gabriel Münter's black and white photographs document her voyage to the South of the United States at the end of the nineteenth century. If the initial display appears quite bare, it is followed by an abundance of paintings in the next rooms, offering a glimpse into the life of a small circle of friends. We can see a candid portrait of Kandinsky in short pants and leg warmers in deep conversation with Erma Bossi over coffee (Kandinsky and Erma Bossi at the Table, 1912), or having pastries and coffee (Man at the Table (Kandinsky)), 1911, both works by Gabriele Münter. She also depicts Alexej von Jawlensky, Olga von Hartmann, or catches an intimate moment between the couple Jawlensky-Werefkin during an excursion in the mountains. Wassily Kandinsky paints a portray of Gabriele Münter (Kallmunz-Gabriele Münter Painting II, 1903), Franz Marc of Maria Franck,  August Macke paints Elizabeth Epstein who paints herself, so does Marianne von Werefkin. The artists become familiar as they pose for each other and also share pictures of their surroundings. Fauves and Matisse are not far when Wassily Kandinsky paints his dining room and his bedroom in Munich's Schwabing neighborhood. Five of his paintings side by side made in Murnau between 1908 and 1910 about a garden, a street, a church or a cow, reveal the subtle path of the artist from expressionism to abstraction as a yellow horse (With a Yellow Horse, 1909) appears nearby. Their international connections are not forgotten and Robert Delaunay, Lyonel Feininger, Paul Klee, are featured with two or three paintings each, scattered among the show. 

The exhibition takes a surprising turn as the joyful, colorful display abruptly turns black and white. A series of photographs from Gabriele Münter, memories of  her trip to Tunisia, triggers comments about colonialism, orientalism and exoticism to label artists most likely looking for new colors under new skies. "Performing Gender" in Room 5 features two artists, the androgynous dancer Alexander Sakharoff and the painter Werefkin who made his portrait, bringing up comments about sexuality, gender, the "third sex", but failing to mention that he was happily married for more than thirty years to Clotilde von Derp, herself a famous dancer and the couple was known as "The Sakharoffs". We are told that Werefkin who stated "I am not a woman, I am not a man, I am I" was "resenting gender binaries". She was an artist, longtime companion, soulmate, lover of Jawlensky. Lining up a dark passage, behind glass like in a curios cabinet, a selection of heteroclite personal objects and art pieces reveal the artists' broad interests and sources of inspiration. 

Following the interlude, the exhibition goes back on track reuniting Kandinsky, Marc and his wife Maria Franck-Marc in the next room where the noticeably larger works project an explosion of colors. Three paintings side by side from Franz Marc made in 1912 reflect his mystical quest (Doe in the Monastery Garden, 1912) and his technical mastery. Merging cubism, orphism, futurism, In the Rain (1912) represents a lively domestic scene of Marc's wife and dog under sheaths of rain surrounded by nature while Tiger (1912) and later in the show Cows, Red, Green, Yellow (1911), Deer in the Woods II (1912), illustrate his higher goals born from years of studying theology and Eastern religions, driving him to look for a natural order within the animal kingdom and the "underlying mystical design of the visible world". His life was unfortunately cut short on the battle field in Verdun in 1916. Kandinsky's religious paintings (St George III (1911), All Saints (1911), Improvisation Deluge (1913) or On the Theme of the Deluge (1913-14) ) are a step toward his ultimate search defined in his book On the Spiritual in Art, realized through a process of abstraction on the canvas. Objects "become immaterial" melting in a chaos of colors and shapes, as perspective becomes irrelevant in an infinite cosmic world. Schoenberg's music fills the next room and we can listen to his early atonal works (Second String Quartet op.10 and Three Piano Pieces, op.11) while looking at Impression III (Concert), 1911. It is a unique experience filled with emotions (at least for me) as we go back in time to the night of January 2, 1911, and connect with the artists. A brief  overview of color theory by Goethe, Chevreul, is outshined by a display of Marc's personal tool in a glass case. He used a prism to find "pure colors". A modern version is made available for the visitor to look at Deer in the Snow II, 1911. Color and light are inseparable and Lichtdecker Kandinsly, an environmental light installation from Olafur Eliasson  premiered at the Lengenhaus in 2006, offers variations of Improvisation Gorge, 1914, from Kandinsky under white light and shows its effect on our perception of colors. For a grand finale, a collection of works seems randomly hung on the walls. It represents artists closely or loosely associated with the Blue Rider, well known or less known, like a reunion of friends, the Delaunays, Klee, Bloch, Burliuk and of course Kandinsky, Münter, Marc, Werefkin, Macke. Twenty paintings to be savored one at a time. 

Kandinsky and Marc come out as the stars of the show, the former with more than twenty works of his pre-war career during which he had a huge impact on the birth of abstraction and the latter with six paintings rarely seen in one venue. The closest I have come so far with Marc's paintings is at The Phillips Collection where Deer in the Forest I, 1913, is hung in the children's room. Gabriele Münter overshadows the exhibition with paintings, woodcuts, reverse glass paintings, photographs, but her influence appears to be as a material and emotional support for the members of the Blue Rider, so is her friend Maria Franck Marc.

Wall texts are the backbone of an exhibition, leading the viewer throughout the show. Here the box-ticking about imperialism, colonialism, racism, neurodivergence, gender fluidity..., becomes tedious and off subject as the texts provide definitions of polytheism or theosophy, belittling the viewer.

Enjoy! It might be a while until we see another reunion of the Blue Rider's members.  

photographs by the author:

Wassily Kandinsky "Murnau with Church I", 1910

Franz Marc "Doe in the Monastery Garden", 1912

Gabriele Münter "Jawlensky and Werefkin", 1909

Softer Art at the Renwick Gallery

Famously, Penelope spent twenty years weaving a shroud for her father-in-law Laertes, waiting for the return of her husband Odysseus from ten years of war and ten more years of adventures on his way home, while she rebuffed numerous suitors. Her craft is still associated with the quintessential values of  domesticity, fidelity, resilience, perseverance, all attributes of femininity. In the 1950's the term "fiber art" was coined to include a wide range of material and skills to produce pieces loosing their functionality to gain in aesthetics in an attempt to set boundaries between craft and art. The works from thirty women artists have been selected  for the exhibition Subversive, Skilled, Sublime: Fiber Art by Women, ongoing at the Renwick Gallery steps away from the White House in Washington, D.C. The promising title reflects fiber art's expanded horizons, from media, techniques, to themes, revealed through thirty-three pieces displayed on the first floor of the venue, home to the Smithsonian American Art Museum's program of contemporary craft and decorative arts. All the works belong to the Smithsonian's collection and span more than three quarters of a century from 1918 to 2004.

Enthralled by the display, it is easy to miss the informative wall text at the entrance of the show. At the center of the room, defying gravity, Coil Series III-A Celebration (1978) set on a low circular pedestal is like a spring gushing from the ground, falling in a fountain of un-dyed strands of hemp and wool, turning into red soft foamy curls on the floor. The result of a laborious process of knotting and wrapping, the dazzling sculpture from Claire Zeisler is a perfect example of the "free from the loom" fiber art. Keeping on with the upbeat start, a figurative wall piece from Emma Amos Winning (1982) features the black silhouette of a woman leaping with joy, free, hair flowing, on a bright background mixture of painted and woven fabric, ribbons and threads. Red and Blue (1969) from Else Regensteiner, a more traditional woven wall hanging, underlines the Bauhaus's influence on the artist who attended the Chicago Institute of Design, previously known as the New Bauhaus. Framed by the arched entrance to the next gallery, Box of Falling Stars (1989), part of the Cloud series from Lenore Tawney is another technical feat, catching the light in thousands of thin white strands of linen thread falling from the sky (a square metal frame attached to the ceiling). Every angle of the composition offers a piece of paradise and at times the shadow of a cloud. Close by an earlier piece, In the Dark Forest (ca. 1959), illustrates the skills of the weaver who transforms the loom into a canvas, mixing patches of autumnal colors. The haptic piece with its mossy texture transports us in the deep wood where a few rays of light filter through the trees. Across, Reflections (1982) from Cynthia Schira offers a serene aquatic landscape made of delicate touches of color, like ripples. In the same area, two wall pieces, Cal y Canto (ca.1979) from famous Colombian artist Olga de Amaral and Breeze (ca.1958) from Mariska Karasz, fashion designer and textile artist, complete the display.  

Each of the thirty artists is represented by one work (occasionally two) complemented by a discrete but enlightening wall text with a photograph and a quote from the artist, comments about the work and relevant biographical information. The show proceeds in the main gallery, a long, wide space under a high ceiling, allowing an enjoyable visit despite the flow of visitors. More tightly packed the works are mostly hanging on the walls, a few are displayed in glass cases. The variety of the works, from colors, material, themes, techniques, could be overwhelming, especially as they seem to be randomly set. It becomes an adventure of a sort to progress through the riveting exhibition looking at a native American rug, a colorful sculpture made by an artist with Down syndrome, or a quilt heavily influenced by African roots, and discover works from less known artists next to famous ones.  A towering iconic sculpture from Sheila Hicks The Principal Wife Goes On (1969), gets a prominent spot in the middle of the gallery close to a humble embroidered quilt from Consuelo Jimenez Underwood, memorial to little girls who perished at the Mexican-American border while migrating to the United States. Every piece tells a story, from the quilt made by Clementine Hunter who never left the Melrose plantation, a place she also describes in her paintings with the same fresh naive style, to a large "femmage" about domesticity assembled by Miriam Schapiro, an engaged feminist artist. From a Birmingham Jail: MLK (1996) from L'Merchie Frazier, a tribute to the civil rights movement's leader, is a patchwork of fuzzy portraits of MLK mixed with images of African sculptures and fragments of texts. More powerful than slogans, Unveiling the Statue of Liberty (1964), a very busy quilt from Katherine Westphal presents a new version of Edward Moran's patriotic painting of the same name made in 1886, with harbor and celebratory flags replaced by a jambalaya of shredded fabrics under the statue. Faith Ringgold, a multimedia artist who just passed in April 2024, favored quilting over painting to celebrate her culture and a piece of American history as her alter ego Cee Cee evolves amid the Harlem Renaissance society.  In a side gallery, two suspended sculptures Medusa (1975) from Neda Al-Hilali, born in the Czech Republic and Nagare VII (1970) from Kay Sekimachi find a place in the floor to ceiling niches while a Peruvian inspired tapestry from Susan L. Iverson and a kinetic seascape from Adela Akers line up the walls. Fiber art can be utilitarian with a decorated dress or a bedspread, figurative or abstract like Crazy Too Quilt (1989) from Lia Cook. It includes also beadwork represented by an elaborate necklace and a sculpture Birth of Mammy #4 ( 2004) from Joyce Scott, a local artist who just had a rousing  retrospective at the Baltimore Museum of Art. 

The last room accommodates a display of archival notes, drawings, samples of colored thread, swatches in glass cases, all part of the meticulous preparatory work leading to the realization of the piece of art. 

Fiber art has come a long way since the scathing review of the show Woven Forms by Louise Bourgeois for Craft Horizons in which she states: "These weaving, delightful as they are, ...., if they must be classified, they would fall somewhere between fine and applied art... The pieces in the show rarely liberate themselves from decoration." Works from Lenore Tawney and Claire Zeisler were included in the exhibition and her comments may be reflecting the "low culture" connotations of fiber art in the early sixties. The show at the Renwick Gallery gives a new broad outlook on fiber as a medium to create art and underlines the variety of works and their far reaching topics, opening new worlds for the viewer. Independent of fashions or movements, fiber art touches all ways of life.

Yes, "Subversive, Skilled, Sublime".       

 

                                                              

photographs by the author:

- Lenore Tawney "Box of Falling Stars" (1989)

-Katherine Westphal "Unveiling the Statue of Liberty" (1964)

-Claire Zeisler "Coil Series III-A Celebration" (1978) 

-Sheila Hicks "The Principal Wife Goes On" (1969)

-Clementine Hunter "Melrose Quilt" (ca.1960)

Celebration at The Kreeger Museum

The architecture of the modern mansion designed by Philip Johnson and Richard Foster is one of the attractions of The Kreeger Museum nestled in a wealthy residential enclave of Washington DC. Its permanent collection and the temporary exhibitions keep bringing me back for a visit, the latest to view Here, in this little Bay: Celebrating 30 years at The Kreeger. Even though the fourteen artists selected for the show are from the DMV area (DC, Maryland, Virginia), it is a cosmopolitan gathering as ten of them were born abroad, from the Far East to South America. A reflection "on our interactions with the natural environment", the theme of the exhibition is approached through photographs, paintings, drawings and sculptures. 

With a fresh pair of eyes I went downstairs to start the visit, my first encounter with the artists and their works. Initially thought to be industrial furniture, Marshland Elegy, 2024, from Marty Koelsch, a decorative flat piece of sycamore lying on a black metal base, upon closer look revealed the map of a meandering river drawn by gaps in the carefully polished salvaged wood. The exhibition's brochure found upstairs in the library provided cues about the mortuary title of the work, a speculative model of Jones Falls, a pristine stream in Maryland now forever altered by the industrial developments brought by European settlers. Dreams of an untouched Arcadia generate regrets tinged with an aura of romanticism. 

A somber mood pervades the first gallery bathing in greyish, black, muted colors, to deal with themes about catastrophes like Burning Away #1 and #2 (2023), two chemigrams from the Japanese-American photographer Kei Ito. The crude silhouettes of charred human remains are the result of a complex process involving oils, honey, syrup, and refer to the devastating nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, forever part of the artist's history. The two small sculptures on pedestals Volcano (2003), and Peak (2003) from Athena Tacha, born in Greece, are diminutive works from the multimedia artist better known for her sizable environmental public sculptures. Her two shiny black mandala-like works on the wall (silver acrylic ink on black watercolor paper), are spoiled by the reflection of the spotlights. Part of her Singularity series, they are an attempt to unveil mysteries from the universe while Golden Pools, 2015-2016, photographs of volcanic pools in the Danakil Depression bring us to remote Ethiopia. Venice is sinking. Soledad Salamé's black and white photographs, upshots of original aerial views from Google Earth, reveal an hypothetical sight of the magical city, victim of climate change, engulfed in water. Famous for his sculpture Kryptos, located at the CIA headquarters, Jim Sanborn is also an ecologically friendly land artist. Through elaborate techniques, he creates stunning photographs of natural sites on which he imprints geometric designs or magnified fingerprints, underlining the beauty and purity of  natural sites and the brevity of our interaction on them. Three of his photographs from the Analog Projections series are featured with sites from Utah, Oregon and Ireland.  

A short passage filled with a display of African masks leads to a windowless gallery lined up with works on the walls and two sculptures on pedestals. For once, my first impression is deceptive. A  flimsy looking assemblage haphazardly constructed with painted paper towels on wooden frames supported by sandbags, Stervende Overwinning (Dying Victory) (1872-2024) from Monsieur Zohore reveals the depth of its content when looking closer. Made of snippets of more than twelve paintings from Piet Mondrian, divided by a long thick white braid, the work sums up the painter's career from his figurative to his abstract period which made him famous. One can recognize a wilted sunflower alluding to Dying Sunflower, (1907-1908) which belongs to The Kreeger's permanent collection and a fragment of Broadway Boogie-Woogie (1943), his last painting. Zohore implies that 1872, the birthyear of Mondrian, is also the year of conception of "Dying Victory". Monsieur Zohore, pseudonym of the Ivorian-American artist born in Potomac, Maryland, could be a clown's name. The artist uses humor, self-deprecation, absurdism, satires, to tackle serious subjects, here art history and life-cycle. Upstairs in the library, Primitivism (Plinth), 2012-2024, an installation made of plastic birds of paradise, native flowers of South Africa, standing in bottles of Windex brings up reflections about beauty, economic disparities, values, pollution, cultural products, and more, through a visual metaphor. Across, two paintings from David Carlson mingle Western and Eastern art in abstract compositions as Dolores Zinny's miniature color drawings offer small views of the limitless sky from Rosario, Argentina, to Baltimore, Maryland, evoking the migration patterns South to North. With trimmed landscapes in the background, the six portraits from the photographer Chan Chao of soldiers, mother and child, father and child, stay remote, storiless, lost in the past (photographs from 1997 to 2008). Shahla Arbabi's paintings are moody and premonitory while her two sculptures objectify the forces of destruction followed by decay brought by catastrophes. The models of crumbling buildings make us ponder about our fragile present and the concept of impermanence. The next stop is upstairs in the library where we find Monsieur Zohore's installation and the books from the collectors. The sounds from Kristin Putchinski's video enliven the quiet atmosphere as the images of Reaping and Sowing, 2023, her 12 minutes performance, run by. The wrecking and transformation of an upright piano is a violent scene unfolding on a screen divided in two parts. One can extrapolate to personal and universal cycles of destruction and reconstruction. Jae Ko, Linn Meyers and Juan Maidagan are each represented by one work in the third gallery closeby. Jae Ko born in South Korea adopts the traditions of paper folding from Far Eastern countries in her composition JK 2158 Red on Ash Black, 2023. For Linn Meyers the creation of Mirror World, 2022, is a performance in itself as she draws (it seems) an infinity of small black dots on a fine grid. The result is a delicate diptych, a thin black veil leaving an ethereal light filter through translucent folds.  Maidagan is represented by a small wall sculpture in bronze, inaccessible and lonely on the white wall. The modern mansion appears to be built around an interior courtyard filled with palms and small sculptures. In Silence, 2001-2002, the work from Salamé, made of insects caught in resin color of amber, is in harmony with the background of plants which survived since prehistory. On the other side, the site specific curtain-like orange and yellow installation from Dolores Zinny Aliseos (Westerlies, Easterlies), 2024, makes us dream of paradisiac islands, palm trees and idyllic sunsets.

It is a new world since the poem from Coventry Patmore was published. The title of the exhibition 'Here, in this little Bay' is the first verse of 'Magna Est Veritas', a poem published in 1877. I have to confess, I discovered the author and the artists selected for the show on the Internet. I also relied heavily on the brochure which provided detailed information about the sometimes labor intensive processes involved in the creation of the works and when needed, the keys to their concepts in overblown analysis. The goal of the exhibition is reached: a reflection "on our interactions with the natural environment". All the selected works make us face the reality of our harmful impact on the natural environment. Nature which used to provide a peaceful retreat to seek beauty and pursue spiritual endeavors, now generates guilt, anxiety, and a feeling of doom: the rain is acid, the sun is too hot, trees are burning and seas are rising. 

A somber anniversary at The Kreeger Museum.

photographs by the author:

David Carlson "Tree", 2023

Shahla Arbabi "Frozen in Time", 2022

Monsieur Zohore "Primitivism (Plinth)", 2012-2024

Soledad Salamé "In Silence", 2001-2002

More at Hirshhorn

Revolutions: Art from the Hirshhorn Collection 1860-1960, the title of a major survey of the museum's artworks omits part of its content. To celebrate its fiftieth anniversary, the Hirshhorn is not only providing a review of a century of art history through 270 of its masterpieces, it offers also a selection of paintings and photographs from nineteen contemporary artists, strategically spread throughout the seven galleries. Each work is displayed on colored walls to call for attention and is accompanied by a  text introducing the artists, almost half of them women.     

 You cannot miss the sculpture of Nicolas Party at the entrance. The massive, towering bright head of a humanoid possibly born from a computer could be replicated ad infinitum. Emotionless, of garish colors, simply called Head (2018-2022), the sculpture made me long for Party's installation Draw the Curtain (2021) wrapped around the building during its renovations. In keeping with bright colors, Cobalt Blue Dress (2020) from Amoako Boafo, artist-in-residence at the Rubell in 2019, is hung side by side with a portrait Mrs. Kate A. Moore (1884) from John Singer Sargent. The provocative setting allows to compare the fresh simplicity of Boafo's anonymous sitter to the haughty socialite, highlighting the changes in society. 

The next featured artists are photographers, each paired with a painter. The result can be baffling. Per the wall text, an abstract  photographic assemblage from David Alekhuogie about Black Lives Matter connects him to "a long history of Modernist painting" and in particular to a bird's eye view of the Eiffel Tower from Robert Delaunay. In keeping with these questionable associations, we find Barbara Kasten linked to the constructivist movement, Paul Pfeiffer with George Bellows and farther the painter Nathaniel Mary Quinn next to Picasso. Catherine Opie's series about the inauguration of President Obama would suggest that she is a photojournalist. She is best represented by her raw, sometimes difficult to look at intimate photographs of herself or outcasts. Her photographs are matched with a painting from Childe Assam commemorating the first anniversary of US entry into WWI. In gallery 5 labelled "Aftershocks" about post-war artists, Rashid Johnson's monochrome abstract Anxious Red Painting "August 18th" (2020) is deemed "stylistically having much in common with that of Jean Dubuffet". Why not Cy Twombly's red scribbles? 

Size matters. The large multimedia piece from Loie Hollowell overshadows a delicate pastel from Georgia O'Keeffe, less than a quarter of its size. Colors matter. The hues of  Ann Pibal's geometric abstract acrylic on aluminum panel "build on ...Piet Mondrian and other de Stijl artists" are skewed by the orange paint of the wall which transforms a piece of art into a decorative accessory worthy of an interior design magazine. The unfortunate effect of the colored walls is that it undermines the works like the dreamy rococo-inspired scene from Flora Yukhnovich or the moon like landscape from Torkwase Dyson. 

Untitled #12 (The Marsh) (2017), a gelatin silver photograph from Davoud Bey is more than it seems. At first a large (5-foot-wide) reflecting black surface (on an orange wall), the photograph reveals a quiet body of water surrounded by hazy brushes under a moonless sky when coming closer. Immersed in the night landscape, one can imagine the terrifying journey of the enslaved persons travelling the Underground Railroad under the cover of darkness. Stepping back, I saw my own fading shadow and the work turned into a memento mori. Looking at the powerful piece I could not find its "dialogue with Arthur Dove and Marsden Hartley". The only sculpture from contemporary artists in the galleries Selfportrait nude descending a staircase at the Raval (2012) is a conceptual work from the Mexican artist Abraham Cruzvillegas featuring a ladder to nowhere made of discarded material matched with a small collotype reproduction of the famous painting from Marcel Duchamp. Zao Wou-ki, Franz Kline and Torkwase Dyson favor black. Bird and Lava #4 (2021) from the latter is a  view of a lunar landscape crossed by floating strokes of black paint attached to short threadlike white tails and a tiny orange dot at the bottom, like a spark. The rounded canvas (8 feet in diameter) feels like looking through a telescope. The tondo reveals the skills of the artist who can create at once a meditative and narrative piece through her mastering of abstract and conceptual art.

 I may have missed a few artists, but like tasting too many wines, it becomes difficult to stay focused on each one. Curators are supposed to help us go through the maze of the exhibition and the attempt to single out contemporary artists by the colors of the walls is distracting at best. The location of their works, the comments on the wall texts, are constant reminders of the influence of past trailblazers. What makes them successful contemporary artists is that, after digesting centuries of art history, they refresh techniques and themes, own them, and make them relevant to today's world.

Should we be reminded of the influence of prehistoric cave paintings on Picasso each time we look at his bulls? 

photographs by the author:

Torkwase Dyson "Bird and Lava #04" (2021)

David Alekhuogie "34.0113°N, 118.3358°W, Crenshaw and Martin Luther King Drive" (2021)/ Robert Delaunay "Eiffel Tower and Gardens, Champ de Mars" (1922)

Loie Hollowell "Boob Wheel" (2019)/ Georgia O'Keeffe "Goat's Horn with Red (1945)

Flora Yukhnovich "Lipstick, Lip Gloss, Hickeys Too" (2022)

Highlights at Hirshhorn

 

Hirshhorn Museum is celebrating its fiftieth anniversary with a landmark exhibition of works from its permanent collection spanning one hundred years. Revolutions: Art from the Hirshhorn Collection, 1860-1960 assembles two hundred and eight art works selected among the more than thirteen thousand pieces mostly acquired through the bequest from the entrepreneur and avid art collector Joseph H. Hirshhorn, a migrant from Latvia. Of the one hundred and seventeen artists represented, nineteen are contemporary and emerging, underlining the ongoing mission of the museum focused on the acquisition of late-twentieth century and contemporary art while seeking diversity with the inclusion of women and nonbinary artists. The title of the year-long exhibition hints to the rapidly evolving political and cultural landscapes of the period reflected through a selection of pivotal works. The second story of the circular building is a fitting venue for the challenging exhibition organized in seven sections each introduced by a wall text.

Head  (2018-2022), a garish figurative sculpture from the Swiss contemporary artist Nicolas Party is set like a sentinel at the entrance and the show starts on a rousing sight, two portraits side by side. Mrs. Kate A. Moore (1884) from John Singer Sargent, a commission, features the Parisian socialite  while Cobalt Blue Dress (2020) from the Ghanaian artist Amoako Boafo, one of his friends. The purposely provocative display triggers thoughts about the very distinct techniques of the figurative paintings and furthermore about status, power, beauty,... In the glass cabinet across, works from renown artists like Henri Matisse, Auguste Rodin, Pablo Picasso, illustrate the transition from figurative to abstract in sculpture. Well-known pieces from Constantin Brâncuși, "the patriarch of modern sculpture" who famously stated in 1927 "Art- There still hasn't been any art- art is just beginning", are prominently displayed. The show goes on at a dizzying pace with a succession of mostly paintings and a few photographs covering the walls, and cabinets in the center for the sculptures sometimes hanging from the ceiling (i.e. Calder). All the heavyweights are represented in the galleries labelled "Modern Beginnings", "Abstraction and Construction", "Vital Forms": Pablo Picasso, Joan Miró, Gabriele Münter, Winslow Homer, Wassily Kandinsky, Marsden Hartley,... straddling two continents from Europe to America, in mainly chronological order with a futile attempt at arranging them by movements. Futurism with Gino Severini, orphism Robert and Sonia Delaunay, surrealism Max Ernst, figurative, abstract, the visit soon becomes a blurred succession of works of art. 

A visual overload hit me when I reached the fourth gallery introduced by a vague and ambiguous title "Local Visions". Regional artists? Washington color school? Starting with a modestly sized painting from Georgia O'Keeffe, the collection of works gives a glimpse into a prolific time in American art. Thanks to the gallerist and photographer Alfred Stieglitz, Georgia O'Keeffe who later became his wife had her first exhibition at 291, the famous gallery, so did Marsden Hartley. His portrait of a hunky bather and a landscape of Mt. Katahdin in 1941 sum up his later years spent in Maine (a painting of his German years is found in Gallery 2). Of course, Arthur Dove and Milton Avery, the "American Matisse", also promoted by Stieglitz are included in this section which concentrates on American Modernism. Even a Mexican artist, Rufino Tamayo, who was shunned in his country for his political leaning, became acquainted with the group and gained fame in New York City then in Mexico. The sculptor David Smith was a friend of Avery and nine of his sculptures including the rustic monochrome red Agricola I (1951-1952) are shown with two of Dorothy Dehner's, his wife. A quintessential portrait from Alice Neel is almost overlooked among the busy display. 291 became a beacon of avant-gardism for European and American artists, and if all the above names are found in history books, outsiders like Grandma Moses and Horace Pippin are usually discovered at the occasion of a museum's visit. The quint scene from Moses contrasts with Pippin's who did not get to see Paris and depicts a nightmarish episode of the war in the French trenches. Jacob Lawrence is a story teller with four lively tableaux about parks, Harlem, a watch maker or a game of pool. His works animate the walls leading to Lorie Anderson's site specific installation, unavoidable although not part of the exhibition.

On the other side, the art history lesson continues with a significant display of fragile pieces from Jean Dubuffet set in a glass cabinet next to six portraits from Willem de Kooning made in the late fifties and early sixties. This time the featured sculptor is Alberto Giacometti and his sculptures surrounded by paintings from Jackson Pollock and less known Janet Sobel are taking over the room. Abstract expressionism is in full swing in the next gallery with Lee Krasner, Helen Frankenthaler, Joan Mitchell and their male peers, Hans Hofmann, Morris Louis , Barnett Newman, Franz Kline. It is fitting to find paintings from the "post-expressionists" Cy Twombly, Jaspers Jones and Robert Rauschenberg together in the last gallery as their professional and romantic life intertwined.

At the end of the visit, in awe, replete with images, I could not think. However with some hindsight, it seems that the cursory wall texts are barely adequate for an exhibition of this scope and duration. In view of the rich collection, could the works be rotated at least every six months? The statement on the museum's website: "Together, these gifts constitute one of the most important collections of post-war European and American art in the world. Today the Hirshhorn collection comprises more than13,130 artworks.", makes it frustrating to see so little of so much. 

One more thing, it seemed to be a cool idea to embed the works of nineteen emerging and contemporary artists, however it quickly became a source of confusion and distraction in the already busy show.

Anyway, it is another story... (next post)      

                                                     

  

photographs by the author:

-Milton Avery "Sally and Sara", 1947

-Hans Hofmann "Flowering Swamp", 1957

-Amoako Boafo "Cobald Blue Dress", 2020 and John Singer Sargent "Mrs. Kate A. Moore", 1884

Doom and Gloom, German Expressionism and Neos at the NGA

 

German expressionism evokes blue horses, lavish nudes in natural settings, portraits revealing deep emotions- in short, a liberation from the corsets of academic art.  During the period 1900-1930, political turmoil, rumbles of war, crushed dreams of a lower class abandoned by the industrial revolution, threats from infectious diseases, contributed to a state of angst reverberating through the art world. It is also a time of inner self-discovery spearheaded by Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis and Karl Jung, his younger disciple. The Anxious Eye: German Expressionism and Its Legacy at the National Gallery of Art assembles more than one hundred works created from 1908 to 1921, selected from its permanent collection. The display of mainly prints reflects a renewed interest for the cheaper and faster process involved in their production. It also features drawings, two sculptures and illustrated books. The small size of the works allows for a rich show organized by themes, set in four galleries of the West building.

The self-portraits of Heckel and Kirshner introduce two of the founding artists of Die Brücke, an art movement established in 1905 in Dresden, heavily influenced by Munch from Norway and the Belgian Ensor. Their harsh features are barely soften by colors for Heckel or the subtle blurriness of crayon for Kirshner. The intense gaze of Max Beckmann reveals his profound sadness conveyed through deep frowns and drooping corners of the mouth. For Käthe Kollwitz, self-portraits are "psychological milestones" and if she drew more than fifty of them, she is well known for her realistic depiction of the proletariat. She found her inspiration in war, starvation, poverty, and in 1910, she represents herself with a hand on her forehead, lost in mournful inner thoughts. Did she have a premonition of the tragedies to come? She lost a son in WWI and a grandson in WWII as the world fell apart. In two woodcuts made in the twenties she adopts a tragic expression, and in 1933 draws a serene charcoal version in profile where she appears to forget her torments, absorbed by her art. The hellish portrait of Walter Gramatté who volunteered for the front at seventeen years old, could illustrate one of the Grimm's tales. The expression of fright in The Great Anxiety (1918) reflects a blood curling vision most likely due to the horrors he witnessed during the war. Portraiture, the first part of the exhibition assembles twenty five works and goes on with portraits of luminaries or anonymous sitters. Death, violence, depravity, are feeding the artists' inspiration and works from well-known artists like George Grosz (Attack, 1915) or Otto Dix (Dance of Death Anno 17, 1924) are found next to those of the elder Christian Rohlfs (The Prisoner, 1918) or lesser known Paul Gangolf (Prostitute on Cocaine, 1925). Sorrow, 1914, a grayish allegory from Egon Schiele is a fitting conclusion for this chilling first part as a last sweeping glance fails to reveal a smile among the portraits.  

Moving on, Nature and Spirituality might feature soothing landscapes, maybe even a blue sky?  Two Pietàs (Max Oppenheimer and Georg Ehrlich), Christ Bearing the Cross (1916) and The Fall of Man (1919), from Lovis Corinth, and other religious themed prints feature more harrowing scenes of suffering, suggesting a redeeming spiritual value to humanity's misery. Close by the mountains from Kirchner or the fishing steamer from Emil Nolde appear irrelevant in the midst of a tormented world while the sunrise from Heckel is filled with bad omens. Communion with nature implies nudity, and nudes are plentiful in two of the galleries. Set in primal surroundings, forests, beaches, the models are caught in playful or more contemplative activities. Kirchner is well represented so are Mueller, Pechstein and Heckel. Angular, sharp lines, sickly yellowish colors, the portraits-caricatures reflect the technique of the German expressionists, transforming the Arcadian settings into depressing sights. The erotic nude from the Austrian Egon Schiele stands out with its generous shapes and decaying flesh. Against this somber background, a carefree and permissive atmosphere floated in some circles, evoked in two lithographs about dance and cabarets. The scantily clad dancer in Tänzerin (1913) from Nolde refers to black performers favored by a white bourgeois audience looking for a steamy entertainment.

Colors and size of the seventeen works in the last gallery contrast with the mostly black and white display so far. A dozen artists, from various backgrounds and continents have been selected and their works cover about seventy years, from the 1950's until today. They have little in common and never met, but are assembled under the theme: German Expressionism Reimagined. If the works from Georg Baselitz and A. R. Penk both Germans relate to neo-expressionism, a loosely defined international movement born in the 1980s, it is odd to find David Driskell's  self-portrait inspired by "African art but as seen through the lens of ancestral legacy rather than European colonialism" (wall text). On the American side, Leonard Baskin with The Hydrogen Man (1954) belongs to the list of neo-expressionist artists. His self-portrait is hung between Shikō Munakata, a printmaker inspired by Van Gogh, Buddhism and Japanese folk art, and a woodcut from Kerry James Marshall. One can question the inclusion of Sam Francis considered an abstract expressionist painter or the choice of a monochrome red abstract screen print from Rachid Johnson about COVID, BLM and George Floyd, according to the press release. Figurative is one of the hallmark of neo expressionism, in reaction to abstract.  The three women selected for the show, Miriam Beerman, Nicole Eisenman and Orit Hofshi meet the neo expressionism criteria, from technique to subject. All the works reflect angst, a few of them are related to German expressionism. 

The ambitious goal of  the exhibition as stated by Kaywin Feldman, director of the National Gallery of Art is "to invite visitors to consider the striking parallels between the intensity of human emotion and experience conveyed in the work of the German expressionists during a transformational historic period in the early 20th century and current responses to the cultural and political shifts taking place in our world today." The result is a superficial review of German expressionism through prints. The wall texts give little information about the political context or the influence of Die Brücke which is not even mentioned. For decades, the poorly understood movement in France and even America was labelled as "une erreur gothico-teutonique" (a gothico-teutonic mistake). The sweeping statements erode history especially art history and imply that expressionism was invented by German artists. The means of conveying inner emotions in an expressionistic way is independent of time. The wall texts are cursory and offer little information about the artists who might not be well known by some visitors, missing the educational mission of the museum. The exhibition leaves a chilling message: a look at the past does not forebode well for the future. 

                                                

photographs by the author:

Erich Heckel "Portrait of a Man (Self-Portrait)", 1919

Otto Mueller "Two Bathers", c. 1920

Leonard Baskin "The Hydrogen Man", 1954

Emil Nolde "Dancer", 1913 

Beauty and Happiness, Alma Thomas

 

The artist's name is seldom found in history books, if at all. Following her retirement from teaching art, at the age of sixty, Alma Thomas veered from a figurative practice to an abstract style that defies time and classification. A long-time resident of Washington, D.C., she has been associated with the Washington Color School. A Black woman in an art world dominated by Abstract Expressionist white males, she did not seek fame and also stayed away from her peers' activism during the civil rights movement. She was honored when in 1972 at the age of eighty-one she had a solo exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art, a first for an African-American woman. Over the past decades, she has gained recognition  locally in D.C. where her paintings can be seen at The Phillips Collection or the Hirshhorn. They are also included in the permanent collections of institutions like The Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Modern Art or the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Composing Color: Paintings by Alma Thomas is the latest exhibition of her work taking place at the Smithsonian American Museum of Art which "holds the largest public collection of Thomas's works in the world". About thirty of her paintings are on display for the show dedicated to her late years, starting in the sixties.

The Patent Office building, oldest public construction in Washington, now holds the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the National Portrait Gallery. The wide corridors leading to the galleries are lined up with paintings and on the second floor, two works from Alma Thomas are an irresistible call to view the show. Resurrection (1966), a rather small sized square painting belongs to the White House's collection and was prominently displayed during the Obama administration. Centered on a pale green orb, an explosion of colors going through the gamut of the color wheel radiates in circles, from a cold blue to a sunny yellow trying to spill beyond the canvas. On the other side, Atmospheric Effects I (1970) is a calming blue field interrupted by small bands of burning red and yellow and a few notes of tranquil green. The paint drips at the bottom as if the work is still in progress, evoking the ever-changing state of nature.

Space, the first theme reflects Thomas's interest in technology, science, and the Apollo mission she watched on television, which provided photographs of the Earth from space inspiring the artist for Snoopy-Early Sun Display on Earth (1970) and Blast Off made the same year, a painting which now belongs to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. Antares (1972), a monochrome rendition of the bright star, shimmers due to the innumerable red thick strokes aligned in vertical stripes on the white canvas. The biggest piece in this room, The Eclipse (1970), is built with the same pattern than Renaissance including the color scheme. The story of the rare and fleeting event is told with an off-centered dark orb, the moon, moving across the canvas.

Upon entering the next room labelled Nature and Earth, I felt overcome by joy. For her series about nature, the artist revisited her childhood's memories or just looked at her backyard through the window of her kitchen-studio. Rows of horizontal lines of colored patches for Light Blue Nursery, 1968, or vertical white lines on a green background for  Snow Reflections on Pond, 1973, Thomas adopts the same technique for the abstract paintings about nature, yet they generate different emotions, one of happiness, the other of melancholy. Fall Begins,1976 or Autumn Leaves Fluttering in the Breeze, 1973, a symphony of reds or oranges, are like a last hurrah before winter. Spring Grass, 1973, a monochrome bright green is all about patterns built with interwoven brisk short strokes of paint on the white canvas. The result is so fresh that we can smell the grass. While surrounded by the paintings, distillate of nature, we can hear melodies, sample perfumes, and feel the warmth or the coolness of the seasons. 

The titles of the five paintings assembled in the third room allude to music, a fundamental component of Thomas's practice. Red Sunset: Old Pond Concerto (1972), is found with late works like Untitled (Music Series) (1978), made the year of her death. The display allows to follow her experimentations, introducing what she called "hieroglyphs" like in Grassy Melodic Songs (1976). Her lively works do not reflect her physical decline in her late years and Red Azaleas Singing and Dancing Rock and Roll Music (1978) found in the modern and contemporary art galleries on the third floor, created for her last solo show, is a testimony of the artist's relentless energy.

An art teacher for decades, Alma Thomas was most likely very well versed in the theories about colors, Bauhaus, synesthesia in art, and more. She grew up with music, nature, and of curious mind, stayed abreast of scientific discoveries. She was not engaged in activism, her mission was a search for beauty and happiness. Lost in the colors and rhythms of the paintings, we connect with her as she generously shares a primitive simple pleasure of being alive and answers to our questions:  What is beauty? What is happiness? 

Alma Thomas's reply makes her work defy time and classification: “Through color, I have sought to concentrate on beauty and happiness, rather than on man’s inhumanity to man.” 

                                                       

photographs by the author:

"The Eclipse", 1970

"Untitled (Music Series), 1978

display Nature and Earth