Is This Art?

Since its invention in the 1830's, photography has been the subject of an argument now pretty much settled: photography is an art form. This month, three concurrent exhibitions at Arthur Roger Gallery are dedicated to the printed medium with the main show assembling more than twenty recent pictures from the world renowned photographer David Yarrow. A collection of works from Robert Mapplethorpe and George Dureau are facing each other in the adjacent gallery. Portraits and videos from Brent McKeever, a 16-year-old photographer, are found in a homey back space. While the nude portraits from Mapplethorpe and Dureau may still upset some viewers, they passed the test of time and even of law. Mapplethorpe's pictures of penises are now prized as much as those of his suggestive flowers. McKeever's portraits of swim-suited beauties on beaches veer toward fashion photography. What about David Yarrow's images of wild animals?

The picture of a huge elephant facing the entrance is an unusual sight in a fine art gallery. The monochrome show features twenty large-scale photographs hung along the walls of the space, spreading from the street side to the back of the building. Surrounded by elephants, lions, bears, wildlife found in remote places of India, Africa, Northern America, it is a challenge to select one of the beasts to start the visit. Each photograph is accompanied by a lengthy wall text commenting on the pic's circumstances, the subject itself, providing technical details about the shot and of course its title, location and year. The portraits provide a unique view of the animals seen from below, themselves gazing at the viewer. Close-ups convey the idea of huge bodies, so does cropping of heads which appear too big to fit within the frame. To suggest strength, power, wisdom, appendages like tusks become the focal point. The images are usually flattened leaving little to no room for a background. A few photographs offer a glimpse into the fauna's habitat. For these, Yarrow chose to break the rules of composition to make his point. For example, in The Gathering Storm, 2011, the row of elephants stays under the perfect straight line of the horizon defining a small band of land, while the sky occupies most of the space above it. The massive pachyderms appear minuscule at the bottom, like crushed by the heavy clouds, overtaken by the wrath of nature. In 78 Degrees North, 2017, a white bear is walking away, swallowed by the whiteness of its natural environment, the pads of its back paw picturing a black abstract sign. One step further, The Factory, 2017, a photograph of zebra patterns results in pure abstraction. What about colors or lack of it? Let's quote the artist who shared his thoughts about it in an interview: "There are three reasons (to choose black and white): Firstly, it's timeless. Secondly, it's art rather than reality... It just feels aesthetically stronger... Thirdly, a photograph's like a piano. You should be able to use all 88 keys on the piano and go from the rich blacks to the full whites."  In his statement, Yarrow describes his intend to create art. Of course to do so, he had to master the required technical skills and his quest for the perfect shot led him to invent a custom made 14-pound steel box to protect his remote controlled cameras, allowing the unique point of view and perspective. Unable to have his sitter pose for the shot, he manages to "freeze" the moment and like a portrait painter, aims at  immortalizing the soul of his subjects.

One aspect of art, which is thorny but unavoidable, is money. The photographs are printed in limited editions of 12 and bought by collectors, which establishes their status in the art world. So does being hung in art galleries and museums. 

Ultimately, this quote attributed to the great painter Francis Bacon resumes why we are looking at the photographs: "I have always been very interested in photography. I have looked at more photographs than I have paintings. Because their reality is stronger than reality itself."

photographs by the author

David Yarrow's Website to look at his photographs: http://davidyarrow.photography/gallery/wildlife/

Artist's Legacy at Boyd Satellite

There is no better way to discover a city than to walk through its streets, looking at the architecture while learning about its history. To assimilate a city's culture requires a deeper involvement which includes getting acquainted with its artistic heritage, especially in New Orleans where Jeffrey Cook (1961-2009) was born and raised. His short career left a deep imprint on the city's art scene, and the exhibition at Boyd Satellite Gallery is the latest proof of this. A Nkisi for Jeffrey Cook is a "memorial and tribute" to the artist and gathers an extensive body of work, spanning from his debuts as a sculptor to his last pieces.

In the photograph under the title of the show, the artist appears serious and thoughtful. According to his peers, he was charismatic, humble and loyal to his family, friends and community. Starting in a clockwise fashion from the entrance, the exhibition is more or less organized in chronological order.  The overall display offers all shades of browns to blacks with occasional touches of color brought up by works like the first three wall pieces inspired by compositions from John T. Scott, Cook's teacher at Xavier University. Joseph Cornell's influence is also noticeable in the four "boxes" hung along the wall. Each tells a story. In search of his own language, the artist designed two geometric sculptures in painted wood, one of them with ladders, symbol of escape from reality to an imaginary world, according to Joan Miró. Jeffrey Cook's previous endeavor as a lead dancer for a Los Angeles dance company brought him to visit numerous countries from Europe to Asia. However, he never reached the shores of Africa. It is upon his return to New Orleans in the eighties, while visiting the French Quarter galleries, that he soaked in African art and embraced its soul. Most of the following pieces are made with what became his media of choice: cloth, wood, found objects, to create spiritual landscapes. Filled with artifacts gathered in the streets of New Orleans, most of the wall sculptures are of smaller sizes except three of them which could be called panels due to their dimensions while another pair is accompanied by preliminary drawings, proof of the artist's quest for aesthetic and content. All include recurrent symbols like brooms, children's blocks, chalk, ..., described in Andy Antipas's essay Jeffrey Cook: African Art and New Orleans as: "created objects that elude rational analysis, because they form a magical, ideographic vocabulary that is indecipherable without the artist's grimoire". A collection of statuettes made of black cloth secured with twine, like funerary objects, is displayed on individual shelves. Black birds are represented in many pieces. Born from ancestral African beliefs about the soul's future after death, the symbol is also found in Song of Silence. The poignant sculpture made to commemorate two of Cook's friends killed in a shooting features the barrel of two shotguns transformed into birds. Another moving piece is about the holocaust. With pieces of rags and strings, the artist built two expressive figurines full of sorrow. Two collages and an abstract painting are reminders of a less well known side of the artist who was also a painter. The eclectic material of the center piece appears to have been collected after hurricane Katrina. The sculpture, an unstable fragile assemblage of pulleys, pieces of wood and varied objects, evokes destruction and a world in turmoil.

Most of the pieces belong to friends and/or collectors and the busy display misses information about their titles or dates. However, pamphlets and essays written by peers are available at the gallery, providing a window on the artist's work and persona. The exhibition is appropriately called a memorial and includes personal possessions like a weathered bicycle and large pieces of wood from a childhood's tree house built by Cook and his friends in their Central City neighborhood. The artist started to collect everyday objects almost two decades before the disaster struck the city, catching its soul through the debris found in the streets and transforming them into relics through his sculptures. We are made of our past, and Cook went far back in time and also places to find his, digging into his roots from Africa to the Caribbean and fill his works with "spiritual and ritualistic qualities". Four African sculptures embedded in the show emphasize this, so does a quote from Antipas: "... African art was created as spirit guides, to venerate the ancestors, to encourage clan and tribal social order, to protect the community and individuals,... and most importantly, to protect against the supernatural... Jeffrey's pieces are themselves a kind of talisman to help negotiate the fearsome supernatural powers which surround us".

I previously saw a few works from Cook at various venues like the New Orleans Museum of Art or the Ogden Museum of Southern Art. Going through the show allows not only to get a grasp of his body of work but also of his connections to the city's art scene.
The exhibition which takes place during the Triennial Prospect.4 and also at the start of the city's Tricentennial commemoration is the occasion to measure the breadth of Jeffrey Cook's legacy.

photographs by the author

Aha

When looking at art, "aha moments" happen to others, I thought... until I was struck by one of these a few months ago at the Musée de l'Orangerie during my last trip to Paris. I went to see the temporary exhibition Dada Africa, Non-Western Sources and Influences, and by habit, walked through the two elliptical rooms full of tourists making selfies with Monet's Water Lilies in the background.
Even though I visited the permanent collections at numerous occasions, I had the feeling of looking at Monet's murals for the first time. Surrounded by the quiet water sometimes shivering, sometimes dazzling under a ray of sun, and the water lilies floating among willow branches caressing the pond, relishing the blues, greens, pinks, yellows, it was like viewing a poem in colors. I walked along the paintings, back and forth, "in" and "out". Immersed in the monumental compositions, filled with awe, I forgot tourists and time. Contemplating nature distilled by the painter, I reached a calming, deep spiritual state.
Each experience is different and mine was nothing compared to Stendhal's ecstasy while visiting Santa Croce: " I had reached that point of emotion where the heavenly sensations of the fine arts meet passionate feelings. As I emerged from Santa Croce, I had palpitations...., the life went out of me and I walked in fear of falling."
At another level, I realized that several chapters of art history were in front of my eyes at once. I could see a figurative impressionistic scenery from afar and closer, an abstract landscape. Of course, this is not news for Monet's connoisseurs. But it was the first time I became acutely aware of this through my encounter with his work.
How could I have missed so much all these years? Jaded by too many reproductions of the Water Lilies on umbrellas, coffee mugs, calendars, ..., too many poorly displayed Nympheas in museums, I had given up on seeing them. It took that special day to discover, in Monet's words, the "illusion of an endless whole, of a wave with no horizon and no shore".

photographs by the author

"Water Lilies" (details) at the Musée de l'Orangerie