Guston meets Picasso

 

Philip Guston (1913-1980) and Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) could have met. Guston discovered Picasso's work while visiting the Arensberg Collection in the 1920's in Los Angeles and later in 1937 when the famous Guernica (1937) reached the American shores and toured several cities to bolster the aid for Spanish refugees. The same year, Bombardment (1937) from Guston and The dream and Lie of Franco (1937), a series of prints from Picasso hung close by in the exhibition organized to support the Spanish people and world democracy in New York City. The Irony of History, the latest exhibition at the Musée National Picasso-Paris housed in Hôtel Salé, emphasizes the link between the two artists through their politically engaged works, mainly the influence of the elder Picasso on Guston. The display set on two levels of the museum includes mostly satirical paintings and drawings from the two artists, and offers an overview of Guston's career. 

For the visitors less familiar with Philip Guston, a detailed biography introduces the show next to one painting, Sleeping (1977), a "gustonesque" self-deprecatory portrait of the artist in a fetal position hiding under his blanket, waiting for inspiration. The drawing of a cubist Picasso in his studio facing an empty canvas (The Artist before His Canvas,1938) is paired with a smoking, hooded Guston surrounded by his familiar props, clock and light bulb, painting a self-portrait (The Studio,1969).We can almost hear him mutter his famous quote: "The idea of evil fascinated me. I almost tried to imagine that I was living with the Klan. What would it be like to be evil." Another quote from Guston conveys his internal conflict as an artist confronted with a troubled political landscape. "What kind of a man am I, sitting at home, reading magazines, going frustrated fury about everything - and then going into my studio to adjust a red to a blue?" Both appear lost for inspiration in the context of war atrocities during the Spanish Civil War for the former and the Vietnam War for the latter. The Painter of the Hole (1947), a watercolor from George Grosz who witnessed the horrors of two world wars would be a fitting addition. Two figurative works next to each other in a similar neoclassical style: Jeune fille au chapeau les mains croisées/ Girl in a Hat with Her Hands Clasped (1921) and an early work from a seventeen-year-old Guston Mother and Child (1930) hint to the influence of Picasso as well as Renaissance Masters on the burgeoning artist. Three small studies for murals commissioned through the WPA allude to his connections with Mexican muralists like Siqueiros, Orozco and Rivera then active in California. Close to a collage of enlarged newspaper clips about the bombing of Guernica, Bombardment (1937), a tondo from Guston appears of modest size for its content. A response to the destruction of the Basque town by the Fascists, the composition features harrowing scenes including a mother and child hurled by the blast, buildings reduced to rubbles, a figure wearing a gas masks, all spinning around an explosion crater as airplanes hover in formation above. Nearby the sketch of the head of a terrified agonizing horse by Picasso is the only reference to his famous cubist painting Guernica (1937) now housed at the Reina Sophía Museum in Madrid. 

Guston's political engagement through his art started early with his hooded figures about the KKK appearing in the 1930's but his satirical work blossomed in the 70's. Poor Richard, the series of seventy-three caricatures about Nixon and his administration, released in 2001 after Guston's death, was made in 1971. He was then close to his neighbor in Woodstock, the novelist Philip Roth who wrote Our Gang, a political satire about Nixon. His books and publications are exposed in a glass case under bright spotlights with Guston's drawings nearby displayed in a double raw along the wall and Picasso's Plate I and II of Dream and Lie of Franco (1937) which inspired Guston. Picasso's eleven ink and gouache caricatures of famous people (from 1905 to 1959) are found close to sixteen such portraits from Guston made around 1955 with ink or pencil on paper. The only color is brought by a portrait of Nixon titled San Clemente (1975). The square painting depicts the former president who found refuge in California after his resignation. Doubled over with his swollen left leg wrapped in frayed bandages, he appears miserable and also laughable with his phallic nose and tears of self-pity. Guston's obsession with Nixon supplied most of his material for his political caricatures in the 70's. The austere display is followed by two vibrant paintings from Guston's abstract expressionist period in the 50's as the exhibition turns into an abbreviated chronological review of Guston's career. After a short brake from painting, Guston shocked the art world when he released his first cartoonish figurative paintings in 1970 at the Marlborough gallery. Seven well-known paintings sum up his production, all quintessential Guston, accompanied by wall texts providing their context. Guston's caustic wit transpires in all of them from the earliest Dawn (1970) with its hooded shady figures to the latest, East-Coker Tse (1979) about the artist himself, on his death bed. The short display ends abruptly to be continued in the basement where twelve of his late paintings are lined up around a room. Of small format they were made following Guston's heart attack and offer a sample of his iconic symbols in ink and acrylic on paper.    

Philip Guston is the latest artist invited for a temporary exhibition at the Musée National Picasso-Paris, most of which are organized to emphasize the influence of Picasso on their guests' work. The highlight of the show is the display of rarely seen caricatures of both artists in the same space. In spite of belonging to different worlds and times, their connection is striking and underlines the power of political satire in visual art. It is challenging for the visitor to look at more than one hundred small drawings, each with a story and implied historical references. Guston's works on view are carefully selected, and the show allows to see in a new light well-known pieces included in Philip Guston Now, an exhaustive exhibition at the National Gallery of Art in 2023, this time short and to the point in "Picasso's temple". 

photographs by the author:

1- Philip Guston "Sleeping" (1977)

2- Pablo Picasso "L'Artiste devant sa toile/The Artist in front of his canvas" (1938)

3- Philip Guston "San Clemente" (1975)

4- Pablo Picasso "Songe et mensonge de Franco/Dream and lie of Franco" Plate I (1937)

5- Philip Guston "Bombardment" (1937)

Variations in black

 

In 1952 the Museum of Modern Art acquired a painting from Pierre Soulages then thirty three years old. Better known in the United States in the fifties and sixties, Pierre Soulages is famous in France where in 2014 a museum dedicated to his work was opened in Rodez, his hometown. He was also commissioned for the glass windows of the nearby Romanesque church of Sainte-Foy in Conques. He coined the term "outrenoir" (beyond black) to define his practice and is known as the painter of black and light. “Soulages, another light”, the title of the latest exhibition at Musée du Luxembourg is followed by a subtitle "Paintings on paper" which reveals the content of the show dedicated to a less known side of Soulages's career. The artist recalls that as a young boy he drew trees in the winter and painted the snow black. He adopted abstraction early on and never wavered in his quest for the light reflected by the color black. He passed in 2022 at the age of one hundred and two. He is survived by his wife and life-long companion, Colette, who was involved in the selection of the one hundred and thirty paintings on paper among more than eight hundred, representing the production of the artist from the forties until the early two thousands when he abandoned paper and media like walnut stain, charcoal, India ink or gouache for the exclusive use of acrylic resins on canvas. The chronological retrospective fills the entire space of the museum with works on paper and includes two videos featuring interviews with the artist. 

In the early forties while still a student the young artist inspired by Old Masters like Le Lorrain, Rembrandt, adopted figurative and sfumato techniques as seen in two drawings of portraits laid behind a glass casing at the entrance. Giving up art school in Paris, back home, he experimented with walnut stain and carpenter's tools readily available in his surroundings. Without transition it seems, he adopted abstraction to paint spontaneous ideograms on paper, bringing into play the nuances and transparency of the dark brown to golden walnut stain. A line up of his charcoal and walnut stain paintings represent his production in the forties, as recognition came early for the artist. In post-war Germany, he was not only invited to participate to a yearlong travelling exhibition (1948-1949) with ten other abstract French painters, but also one of his work was selected for the exhibition's poster. His name appears on a number of these, advertising solo or group exhibitions, proof of his growing fame in France. The next room dedicated to works from the fifties feels confined. The walnut stain takes a darker tone and veers to black with thicker intersecting lines mainly straight sometimes angular and even forming swirls, filling the entire pieces of paper. An inner serenity oozes from the paintings evoking Far Eastern  calligraphy. The following works from the sixties are of bigger size and feature large expanses of China ink contrasting with the white paper, black made alive by variations in thickness and fluidity. Abstract expressionism comes to mind. In 1957, although already shown in the United States, Soulages made his first trip to New York City where the movement was flourishing. There he met a number of artists, among them Robert Motherwell. In other paintings, the artist favored the wash technique for his subtle pale blues or light greys transpiring through the black geometric designs. Back and forth from paper to canvas, in 1977 he experimented with color in large-scale gouaches on paper represented by four loud blue paintings displayed side by side. We can follow his attempts at thick black "zips", linear ragged lines with ink, or scribbles with graphite. His return to the organic walnut stain in the late nineties and early thousands produces a series of quiet primordial landscapes made of earth colored strata interrupted by bands of light projected by the white paper, evoking the harsh land of his youth, his everlasting source of inspiration.

In a video of his interview with the journalist Pierre Dumayer in 1969, Soulages professes his natural passion for painting, a calling he describes as a necessity. A second interview with the art historian  Pierre Encrevré relates how he discovered inadvertently the light in the color black after a day of hard work, followed by a nap. 

Tachism, abstract expressionism, geometric abstraction, ..., Soulages never did fit in a movement, pursuing his own path. The exhibition underlines the artist's decade-long experimentations through his paintings on paper for sixty years (1940's until 2000's). Even glued to a support, paper limited the size of the works, often somber behind the glass, smothered by their frames. The artist shared his thoughts: "I always liked paintings to be walls rather than windows. When we see a painting on a wall, it's a window, so I often put my paintings in the middle of the space to make a wall. A window looks outside, but a painting should do the opposite—it should look inside of us". This statement gives a clue to his radical move away from paper to thick layers of acrylic resins on large canvases sometimes hanging from the ceiling which allowed him to sculpt the paint and find the light. The retrospective at Centre Pompidou in 2009 revealed the achievement of the then ninety-year old artist. Immersed in the "Ultrablacks", under the spell, the visitor  (I was one of them) could appreciate the culmination of his lifetime's quest. 

 According to the artist, his works on paper were not preparatory studies for his larger paintings but were part of a practice evolving on its own. We can discover his early use of the walnut stain, a media he mastered. From black to brown to golden, from a transparence found in watercolors to a darkness in charcoal, the organic stain is alive, lustrous and radiates a luminosity worthy of Old Masters like Le Lorrain through an abstract language. The spontaneity of the gesture animates the untitled works. They do not need a story or a context: they are. 

 

        

photographs by the author:

-walnut stain on paper, 1950

walnut stain and oil on paper, 1947

-ink on paper, 1961

-walnut stain on paper, 2003

-gouache and China ink on paper, 1951

Adam Pendleton at Hirshhorn

 

A visit at Hirshhorn for one more look at Revolutions: Art from the Hirshhorn Collection, 1860-1960, a landmark exhibition closing in November, is the occasion to see Adam Pendleton's solo show in the circular gallery on the second floor. Adam Pendleton: Love, Queen assembles about forty of his most recent mixed media paintings and a nine-minute video. 

With little previous exposure to the artist's work, I welcomed the informative wall text introducing the show, followed by an alignment of large canvasses grouped by two or three, interrupted by signs with titles and dates for each one, in a conventional display. All the canvasses have a black background with variations brought by shapes of monochrome colors on top. The white, red, green, blue... compositions evoke abstract expressionism, geometric abstract and street art. They result from an elaborate process starting with drawings and paintings on paper photographed to create screen-prints applied on a black-gessoed canvas. The layering of shapes creates depth and story. The succession of  works along the slightly curved walls of the gallery becomes monotonous and ends with thirteen pieces of smaller size from the series Composition, courtesy of the artist. Using the same visual language of drips, sprays, splashes, peppered with Arial Bold letters or graffiti-like text, they are confined in thin black frames, cheapening their content. All the works are part of  five series: Black Dada, Untitled (Days), WE ARE NOT, Composition and Movement. At first confused by the name Black Dada, an ongoing series started in 2008, I acquired the voluminous book published at the occasion of the exhibition Blackness, White and Light at the MUMOK (Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien) in Vienna, Austria in 2023 to shed some light about the work from the conceptual artist. In her essay, the curator Marianne Dobner describes the birth and maturation of the series: "When Pendleton began making Black Dada paintings, in 2008, they were based on excerpts from Sol LeWitt's Incomplete Open Cubes (1974), a work that explored all 122 ways the framework of a cube can be incomplete. For each painting, Pendleton selected a single line from LeWitt's photographs to use as the composition's foundation. He then positioned the words "BLACK" and "DADA" over them in Arial Bold type before printing some of the letters onto the canvass in black, leaving viewers to extrapolate the missing ones. In the new Black Dada paintings, Pendleton's own painterly gestures have taken the place of LeWitt's geometric forms. Drips, sprays, and splatters from his studio, documented in photographs, provide the new visual index on which the paintings are composed. With inks including green, blue, yellow, gold, and silver, they also introduce a chromatic element not found in his other paintings." The description of the elaborate process left me with questions about the conceptual significance of the works. The journalist Hanno Hauenstein who interviewed Pendleton writes: "he explained the working hypothesis behind his art, Black Dada. In his view, this term encapsulates the relationship between blackness, abstraction and avant-garde art... It also encompasses theoretical outlooks that have shaped his practice, including those of philosopher Fred Moten, queer theorist Judith Butler, and filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard." In Pendleton's own words: "It was initially a kind of conceptual position that I function from as an artist... As a concept, Black Dada is generative, even generous. It opens up the same freedom and flexibility for the viewer as it does for me as an artist." The name Black Dada comes from the 1964 poem "Black Dada Nihilismus" by Amiri Baraka. Pendleton states that the two words merge into two ideas: "Dada meaning 'yes, yes' and Black as an open-ended signifier."  

Overwhelmed by a  rapid succession of images and voices drowned out by loud sounds, subjected to epileptogenic strobe lights and flashes, I missed the video's message blurred by the artistic effects of superimposed geometric shapes. Even its title Resurrection City Revisited (Who Owns Geometry Anyway?) (2024-2025) left me wondering about its content. Again, the wall text provided some light. The images come from archival documentation about Resurrection City erected in 1968 on the National Mall shortly after Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination. The short lived tent city, part of the Poor People's Campaign, was built to underline social and economic inequities. The voice is a recording of Amiri Baraka reading his poem: "I Love Music: For John Coltrane." 

It is clear that the conceptual artist is also an activist deeply involved through his multidisciplinary practice. The exhibition is only a sample of his artistic activities which include performances, videos, installations, photography, paintings, movies, poetry... His eclectic sources from French philosophers like Deleuze or Guattari to poets, filmmakers, diverse visual artists, muffle his own voice and his multiple references transform conceptual art into an elitist cryptic discourse. 

Has conceptual art run amok?... confused at Hirshhorn. 

                                                

photographs by the author:

"Untitled (Composition)" 2024-2026

"Black Dada (L)" 2024-2026

View of the series "Composition"

Famous trio in Paris

The recently renovated Grand Palais in Paris hosts diverse exhibitions, among them, Niki de Saint Phalle, Jean Tinguely, Pontus Hultén in the Galeries Nationales. From different backgrounds, the trio collaborated on numerous projects and its members became prominent personalities in the art world. Niki de Saint Phalle (1930-2002) born in an aristocratic family had a traumatic childhood which shaped her career and, of modest origins, JeanTinguely (1925-1991) grew up in Switzerland, the country of automatons. The Swedish Pontus Hultén (1924-2006) was an artist early on and became a renown museum director and art collector. Their personal and professional relationships were so entangled that mentioning one inevitably brings up the name of the two others. The famous couple Saint Phalle-Tinguely lived separated for years, but even death could not sever their bond as following Tinguely's demise, Saint Phalle took care of his legacy with Hultén's support. The major exhibition set on two levels of the building is organized in ten chapters to present the abundant material including paintings, sculptures, drawings, archival films, letters, photographs, reliefs, models, catalogues, books, posters, diaporamas, mainly from the collection of the Centre Pompidou enriched by loans from major institutions.  

A lonely painting and two films in black and white from Pontus Hultén at the entrance sum up his career as an artist, while one of the series of Méta-Malevitch, Relief méta-mécanique (1954) from Tinguely awakes every ten minutes nearby. They started to collaborate in the mid-fifties, bound by a common interest in kinetic art. Gismo (1960), one of the five assemblages of wheels, discarded metal pieces, rubber, which were paraded in May 1960 in the streets of Paris takes half of the room, inert, in the way of the crowd of visitors slowly moving along a wall covered by photographs about the festive event. Letters, postcards, drawings, tell the story of the trio as their relationship evolves. From another series, Baluba (1961-1962), an amusing sculpture made of a drum and diverse objects is about a serious subject: a tribe caught in a political upheaval in Congo. The pink feather duster swaying on top was suggested by Saint Phalle. Their association goes both ways as Tinguely encourages Saint Phalle to pursue her idea of shooting at the canvas. The Shooting Paintings were born in 1961 and made her famous. One of them is hanging on the wall complemented by a video showing her in action. Among the overwhelming material (each piece is accompanied by videos, archival films of gallery openings or other social events) Tinguely's sculpture Meta-matic n° 17 (1959) allies ingenuity and aesthetics. It spews abstract drawings in a parody of abstract art and hints at the new threat from robots. A smaller version, the first of the series can be found nearby, close to a very "tinguelyan" sculpture, Sculpture méta-mécanique automobile (1954) decorated with geometric shapes of primary colors. More works on display among them L'Accouchement rose (1964), Le Monstre de Soisy (1966) from Saint Phalle or a wall relief from Tinguely, attest to the frenetic activity of the artists which flourishes with two collaborative projects, Hon-en katedral in 1966 at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm and Paradis fantastique in 1966-67 for the French pavilion at the World's Fair in Montreal. These required not only creativity but also huge and complicated logistics. Here comes Hultén who facilitated the realization of the projects and secured also a resting place for the Paradis fantastique at the Moderna Museet. The next room is occupied by one work: Meta n°3 (1970-1971) first displayed at Centre Pompidou, a monstrous machine worthy prop for a sci-fi movie with added jarring rattles and clatters when activated for a few minutes.  

Moving to chapter three of the exhibition, visitors meet a panel of photographs from the Musée Tinguely then and now (1996 and 2025), a remnant of the famous Homage to New York (Klaxon) (1960) which autodestructed, movies, catalogues, a news reel from 1971, Meta-Kandinsky I (1956) and several sculptures from Tinguely coming alive one at a time. Missing the action can be frustrating with a ten to fifteen minutes wait for the next show. Le Soulier de Madame Lacasse (1960) takes a Dada flair with its proud toilet plunger and blue circle hanging from a fishing rod (a wink to Yves Klein). Across, Le Ballet des pauvres (1960) startles with its noisy non sensical accumulation of objects hanging from a large shaking metal piece for eight seconds every thirty minutes. 

The next three rooms are each focused on memorable collaborative projects, starting with HON-en catedral (SHE - a cathedral). The gigantic immersive installation at the Moderna Museet had a lifespan of three months (June 4-September 4, 1966) and we can look at the abundant archival material of the well documented exhibition and a few remnants like the head. Idem for Le Crocrodrome de Zig & Puce, another playful installation which included numerous attractions at the Centre Pompidou in 1977. Both were conceived and constructed under the aegis of Hultén who brought a new vision for the museums, from a passive viewing of art to forums with interactive activities open to a diverse public. The third project,  The Cyclop (1969-1994), an outdoor sculpture, took twenty-five years to build and involved the collaboration of numerous artists with various expertise due to its complex structure. The sculpture can be viewed in the Milly forest and is now preserved by the French state.

 The walk up a flight of stairs to the upper level provides a break before entering a dark space where we find a selection of works from Tinguely's retrospective organized by Hultén at the Centre Pompidou in 1988. They include four sculptures of a series of thirty Philosophers, each with an attribute like feathers for Jean-Jacques Rousseau or a snail for Jacob Burckhardt, facing a self-portrait made of a wheel, long chains, pulleys, a gruesome mask and a stuffed black bird. Tinguely is loosing his humor and dwells in the macabre, as confirmed by a last showpiece: L'Enfer, un petit debut (1984). Hell, a Small Beginning is a large installation made of the accumulation of heteroclite pieces on a platform, activated at the same time, producing a discombobulating sight and a mechanical unpleasant noise, a world in chaos. On the way to the last chapters of the exhibition dedicated to works from Saint Phalle, one more sculpture of Tinguely, Rotozaza I (1967), a machine  devouring and spitting balloons, attempt to deride the capitalist system, is just a quiet monster surrounded by a few benches offering a place to rest for the weary visitors. We can agree with Hultén that: "Tinguely's mechanic is not of good taste and is not attractive, it is often more frightening than beautiful." (my translation).  

Niki de Saint Phalle had a solo retrospective curated by Hultén then Director of the Centre Pompidou, almost a decade before Tinguely, in 1980. The two-month-long exhibition included significant works like "Shooting Paintings"," Nanas" and large scale sculptures. The sample selected here reflects her engagement for the feminist cause with several "Nanas" who made Saint Phalle famous. Among them, Crucifixion (ca. 1965) the most provocative is a distressing sight: a powerless puppet without arms, legs open, debased by her garter and hair curlers. La Mariee (1963) of the same technique with plaster than L'Accouchement Rose seen earlier, is a clear reference to women's condition, smothered by the social pressure to conform. King Kong 1963), a large bas-relief and two light humored pieces L'Aveugle dans la prairie (1974) and La Promenade du dimanche (1971) complete the display, with added movies and archival material. 

The last room brings a tinge of nostalgia and gloom with photographs of Tinguely's grand funerals (1991), letters from Niki de Saint Phalle to Tinguely in 1993, after his death, evoking "cannibalism", "communion". "I am taking your strength, your soul joins mine." Indeed, she incorporates movement in her series of  Tableaux éclatés (Shattered Paintings) like Ganesh II (1992) or Jean II (Méta-Tinguely) (1992) dedicated to Tinguely. Her ties with Hultén stay strong and fruitful with the establishment of the Musée Tinguely in Switzerland, a solo exhibition in Bonn in 1992, preservation of the Tarot Garden in Italy and The Cyclop near Paris. Niki de Saint Phalle spent her last years in California.

The abundance of works and archival material, at times overwhelming, makes the show a landmark exhibition. Collective projects overlapping for years even decades render a chronological presentation futile and contribute to iterations. No museal display will recreate the excitement and fun generated by installations like Hon or the Crocrodrome or reenact the Tirs Paintings, however it provides an intimate view of the synergetic relationship between the members of the trio, even when separated by distance or worse, death. The unique setting allows the display and activation of an astounding number of works from Tinguely, bringing them to life one more time for the exhibition. Hopping from sculpture to sculpture to catch the action, we almost forget that Tinguely was not only a gifted machinist, he was a leader of the Nouveau Realism movement and the group ZERO from Düsseldorf. Niki de Saint Phalle, a self-taught artist, encompasses several artistic trends, from art brut to pop art, action painting, collective art and giant interactive installations as she engaged with the feminist movement. Pontus Hultén, the facilitator, provided an unwavering support to the two artists as he pursued his own career. In this statement, Niki de Saint Phalle acknowledged his role :" They are few essential people who cross a life. Pontus is one of them for Jean and myself" (my translation). 

The trio brought crowds to the museum then, and now, one more time, entertains visitors of all backgrounds, from hardened art connoisseur to children on school trips.     

photographs by the author:

- Jean Tinguely "Méta-Kandinsky I"(1956)

-Niki de Saint Phalle "La Promenade du dimanche" (1971)

- Jean Tinguely "Sculpture méta-mécanique automobile (1954)

-Niki de Saint Phalle "La Mariée" (1963)

-Niki de Saint Phalle "Jean II (Méta-Tinguely) (1992)

Léger and the New Realists

The exhibition "Léger and the New Realists" at the Musée National Fernand Léger, Biot (June 2024-February 25) has taken a more casual and playful title at the Musée du Luxembourg in Paris. "Tous Léger", meaning "All light" a word game on the artist's name, features Fernand Léger's works as the backbone of the show underlying his influence on the Nouveau Réalisme movement which flourished in the sixties, almost a decade after his death. If Ferdinand is a name fit for kings, Fernand has a  proletarian overtone more suitable for Léger who never forgot his working-class roots and joined the communist party for a while. From Cubism, the prolific artist evolved to his own Tubism, and later to a highly personal figurative style characterized by heavily stylized thick black drawings covered by bands of bold colors floating on top, "la couleur en dehors". While living in Montparnasse, he became a fixture of the Parisian art scene and mingled with younger artists labelled Nouveaux Réalistes by the art critic Pierre Restany in 1960. The show which features about one hundred works including paintings, sculptures, short videos and photographs, emphasizes his legacy as he influenced artists beyond borders and time. 

The themed exhibition starts on a metaphysical subject about the four elements of life represented in art. Léger added a fifth element, color: "Man needs color to live; it's just as necessary an element as fire and water". Pairing works from Léger with his younger peers, The Birds 11 (1981), a wall relief from Arman, accumulation of metal clamps transformed in a flock of birds is found next to Composition aux deux oiseaus sur fond jaune (c. 1955) from Léger, Venus bleue (c.1962)  a monochrome sculpture from Yves Klein close to a painting from Léger La Danseuse bleue (1930), or La Baigneuse (1932) along La Source (1965/2044) from Alain Jacquet. Each element (plus one) is represented: water, earth, air, fire, and color. The straightforward connection between the works makes for a pleasant display.

The next room is plastered with quotes from artists and their portrait photographs on one side and a chronological history of the Realist Movement on the other. An abbreviated timeline sums up key art events with a verb, starting in 1956 "assembler" (to piece together) about Niki de Saint Phalle's "assemblages". 1960 is labelled "s'autodétruire" (to self-destruct) alluding to Tinguely's first self-destructing machine, 1961 "brûler" (to burn) and "tirer" (to shoot) referring to the Fire Paintings from Klein and the Shooting Paintings/Tirs from Nikki de Saint Phalle. It ends in 1965 with "nana-fier", a word made up with the famous Nanas from de Saint-Phalle. Brief comments (in color) provide more information, if they can be read. The confined space is crammed with visitors and it takes some patience to reach the first row. A video showing Yves Klein live in the process of burning a canvass with a firefighter in full gear holding a hose at his side brings a smile and some nostalgia. Across, reading the quotes from the artists on the busy wall is another daunting task. None of the texts are translated in English. 

Moving on, "La Vie des Objets" (The objects' life) assembles a collection of works underlining the new status of the object as a source of inspiration and becoming the main subject of the compositions. Gloves, scissors, tools or even debris are arranged in a new kind of still lifes by Léger and Nikki de Saint Phalle. Arman adds an emotional connection to the object in his Colères, here a furniture in the Henri II style, antique greatly prized by the bourgeoisie, destroyed in a presumed fit of rage. For Palette Katharina Duwen (1989) Daniel Spoerri "fixes" his companion's tools, found objects at the flea market. No need to visit The Louvre to find beauty, beauty is everywhere proclaims Léger. In La Joconde aux clés (1930) a beautified set of keys takes over the painting as a miniature Joconde watches in the background. Everyday objects are a visual treat. Seita (1970) from Raymond Hains, a giant used matchbox alludes to the cross-pollination with the Pop art movement born in America as Interior with Chair (1997) from Roy Lichtenstein is spotted close by. 

Beauty is also found in the streets. Artists soak in a new visual urban environment filled with posters, stamps, letters, numbers, lights. Raymond Hains and Jacques Villeglé  tear posters, Robert Indiana makes posters, Fernand Léger a still life with letters (Nature morte, A.B.C., 1927). A blown up photograph of César visiting a junkyard to collect material is the background for one of his sculpture made of compressed metal displayed like a precious art work on a pedestal. The machine is taking over and the anonymous portraits stay emotionless. Nikki de Saint Phalle collaborates with Larry Rivers for Tinguely's portrait, an assemblage of pieces of machinery. Léger discovers ceramic and Martial Raysse introduces neon. 

"L'art c'est la vie" (Art is life) introduces the next display, a room filled wall to wall with colorful works of modest size. The Nanas from de Saint Phalle appear in serigraphs: they play football, volleyball, ride bicycles and go to the circus. Their curves are not sensual but celebrate women's liberation from the constraints  of society. Early on in the fifties Léger paints the proletariat's new life enjoying leisure time like in Le Campeur (1952) or Circus (1950). In a giant photomontage Flower Worship (1982), Gilbert & George  profiles a relaxed half recumbent subject almost smothered by a pile of vibrant colored flowers generating an overwhelming state of happiness. "Too much of a good thing can be wonderful" would say  Mae West.

Art and architecture intertwine. Blown up photographs of monumental works wallpaper the last room: the façade of the church in Plateau d'Assi decorated with a mosaic from Léger or details of de Saint Phalle's giant sculptures found at the famous Tarot Garden. "Art est partout" (Art is everywhere) and sculptures are dreamed for public spaces like Wall Street (c.1975) from de Saint Phalle or La Branche Rockefeller (1952) for Léger. A massive glittering sculpture of Miles Davis and his trumpet (de Saint Phalle) fit for the entrance of an amusement park overshadows a discreet and nostalgic painting from Léger Les Musicians (1930) bringing back a pre-war time of music and dance in the streets of Paris. On the way out, Untitled (n° 2557) (1986), a large graffiti work from Keith Haring is a reminder of Léger's far reaching legacy. 

In the forties and the fifties, on the American side of the Atlantic, Abstract Expressionism was booming as Léger was refining his figurative style to address themes about a new social order born from a growing class of workers called proletariat. In the sixties, America's art scene was bustling in New York City and California with Pop art, Minimalism, Conceptual art as New Realism was thriving in France. The art critic Pierre Restany coined the name "Nouveau Réalisme" in 1960 and published a manifesto summed up by this statement: "New Realism-New ways of perceiving the real." Meanwhile, the crowd of philistines would ask, is this art? Compressing, tearing, burning, shooting, self-destructing,.... Back to Léger, the show emphasizes his new art addressed to folks favoring figurative to abstract and themes about everyday life, his way to democratize art. Léger shunned emotions and intellectual pursuits and emphasized the healing power of colors. Little metaphysical preoccupations transpire from the works exhaling a whiff of political awareness. The exhibition makes a point about Léger's far reaching influence, sometimes stretching its case. Following the visit Léger's legacy takes a new outlook: at the crossroad of art history, he started to bring the street to the museum and the museum to the street. 

Upon leaving I felt unburdened by heavy thoughts, just carefree, cheerful... light. Joy is contagious. 

 

photographs by the author:

-Fernand Léger "La Joconde aux Clés" (1930)

-Nikki de Saint Phalle and Larry Rivers "Jean III (Méta-Tinguely)" (1992)

-Nikki de Saint Phalle "Nana Santé" (1999)

-Arman "Colère (meuble de style Henri-II)  (1961)

Giacometti Forever at Tate Modern

 

At level zero in the Switch House of Tate Modern, far from the hustle and bustle of the main building, The Tanks, a gallery named after its previous use as an oil storage for the power station, deserves a visit to view a display of Giacometti's sculptures. The eleven selected works represent the artist's post WWII period and include one of his surrealist pre-war compositions.

A short passage leads to a dimly lit cavernous earthy colored space with a high ceiling. The sculptures are lined up about one meter from the rough concrete walls, enhanced by the projection of their shadows. Quatres figurines sur pédestal (1950-1965) starts the show. Due to their size, the four statuettes anchored on a thick pedestal of the same bronze set on high legs appear remote, too far for human connections. Giacometti described his torment at the sight of four prostitutes across a room as he shied away from them. About desire, gratification and repulsion, the sculpture hints at his struggle with impotence due to a bout of mumps during his adolescence. The very personal work is followed by two elongated, emaciated, naked figures, the taller androgynous (Grande figure II 1948-9) and the other female (Femme de Venise IX 1956), characteristic of his post-war style. Three busts set on pedestals next to each other emphasize another side of Giacometti's practice. Buste of Diego (1955) made from memory is about his brother, his preferred model. Buste d'Annette IV (1962) one of a series of eight features his wife and Buste d'homme (dit Chiavenna I) (1954) is a rare bust of an unknown sitter. The horrors of the war did impact Giacometti profoundly and inspired three small sculptures of maimed females (c. 1958) with broken and missing limbs set on a stand. They also reflect the influence of Cycladic and Egyptian art with their hieratic postures, long necks and legs. In the middle of the room, Homme qui pointe (1947) casting its shadow on the floor could not find a better setting under a discreet spotlight. Of human size, skeletal but solidly anchored on  two feet and legs spread on a base, Man Pointing aims an accusing finger to the empty space on his right side. Clearly the sculpture refers to the victims of the Second World War. It also becomes a symbol for all victims of war and implies a universal guilt. Still haunted by the last work, on the way out, I almost missed a sculpture nestled in a small rotunda. In the center, on top of a pedestal-altar, L'Heure des Traces (1932) is the only work from Giacometti's surrealist period in the exhibit: a heart in a cage and above, a walking stick-like figure crossed by a reclining stylized female shape, like a 3D drawing, floating in space, a gateway to the world of dreams and the subconscious.

The show which appears modest at first, gives a valuable insight into Giacometti's career with a sample of his works gathered in the fittingly bare industrial space. Of Swiss origin, Alberto Giacometti  (1901-1966) moved to Paris in 1922. While living in the French capital, he mingled with intellectuals and artists and, as he became close to  André Breton and his entourage, adopted surrealism and abstraction in his practice which turned back to the model and figuration around 1935. Following a lull in his creativity during the war spent in Switzerland, he became famous in the fifties and sixties with his sculptures of walking men, standing women, and portraits of family and friends. The slowdown in  productivity during the war was also marked by his miniature sculptures (as small as matches) reduced literally to bones, almost vanishing, Giacometti's way of rendering distance, alienation, loneliness. Homme qui Pointe made "in one night between midnight and nine the next morning" according to the artist, illustrates the spontaneous gesture of the sculptor who stated: "For years, I have made the sculptures that have offered themselves, already finished, to my spirit; I have limited myself to reproducing them in space, without changing anything about them, without wondering what they might signify." Shunning abstraction, conceptual art or art movements, he adopted a more philosophical outlook to his practice as upon his return to Paris, he grew a close friendship with Jean Paul Sartre, beacon of existentialism. In 1948 Sartre wrote "The Quest for the Absolute", an essay for the catalogue of Giacometti's exhibition at the Pierre Matisse Gallery in New York City and the author of  "Being and Nothingness" reviewed Giacometti's work... until their irreparable fall-out. In one of his insightful comments about Giacometti's sculptures he described "these moving approximations, still halfway between nothingness and being, still in the process of modification, improvement, destruction, and renewal, assumed an independent, definitive existence."

In the semi-obscurity, the bronze sculptures enhanced by their ghostly shadows are coming alive under the spotlights bathing their scarred surface. The scenographic setting allows the visitor to feel a deep connection with the works, triggering thoughts and emotions. It offers mainly a frontal view of the sculptures and the wall texts fail to provide their size, however size becomes irrelevant. The sculptures shrink and grow as we walk back and forth in front of them and experience distance and nearness. The silence adds a sepulchral aura to the space and a wish from Giacometti comes to mind: " If I were true to myself, I'd bury all my sculptures so that they wouldn't be found for a thousand years." The show could be entombed in the bowels of Tate Modern for centuries, Giacometti's rediscovered works would be as pertinent as they are today. Human condition is a universal, timeless subject. 

                                                        

photographs by the author:

- On the pedestal: "Standing woman" (c. 1958-9), "Standing woman (c.1958-9) and "Woman with Broken Shoulder" (1958-9)

- "Four Figuries on a Stand" (1950-1965), "Tall Figure II" (1948-49), "Woman of Venice IX" (1956)

-"Man Pointing" (1947)

Lema Sabachthani "Why have you forsaken me?"

  Stations of the Cross (1958-1966), the title of a major series from Barnett Newman, is about Jesus's long agony on Mount Calvary followed by his crucifixion and death, an event reenacted yearly on Good Friday by the Catholic Church. The Aramaic subtitle Lema Sabachthani, Jesus's anguished plea while dying on the cross, widens the impact of the work: "Why have you forsaken me". Following a heart attack in 1958, Barnett Newman made two paintings which grew to a series of fourteen plus one completed in 1966, inspired by the artist facing his own demise at a time of reckoning in a post-WWII era. The fifteen paintings, gift from Robert and Jane Meyerhoff, are permanently located in the Tower 1 of the East Building at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C..

Usually quiet, the gallery is the perfect space for the fifteen canvasses of the same size (6 1/2 by 5 feet) lined up on the walls in harmony with the architecture. The high glass ceiling lets the natural light gently bathe the room and the display is an invitation to sit on a bench surrounded by the works. The neutral colors, black and white, induce a state of tranquility and contemplation. A slow walk along the stations allows an immersive view of the large rectangular paintings for an "enveloping effect" (Greenberg) intended by the artist. A description of each abstract piece would be fastidious and pointless. A brief look from the first to the sixth painting will reveal slightly different shades of  white for the background, a black vertical band of  almost the same width on the left side and black zips on the right side with variations from brushstrokes, speckles or smudges. One cannot refrain from evoking Japanese calligraphy, updated by Newman. The ninth, tenth and eleventh canvasses are beige and white and match the series's vertical design, pillars? crosses? totems? A funerary black background and white zips relate to the final stages of the journey to Calvary ending with the death of Jesus (twelfth and thirteenth paintings). Fourteenth Station (1965-1966) is white, ethereal, immaculate, so bright that it feels like looking at the sun through white clouds. It reaches perfection without visible brushstrokes. A discreet light grey strip is found on the left side. A close look reveals the "spatial infinity" Barnett Newman was pursuing as he wished to visit the tundra to "... have the sensation of being surrounded by four horizons in a total surrender to spatial infinity." Traditionally the fifteenth Station of the Cross, when present, corresponds to the resurrection of Jesus Christ, one of the mysteries of the Church. Here the fifteenth painting, of the same heavenly white than the fourteenth, features a thin jagged blood-red border on the left side, the only warm color in the show and a narrow black strip on the right. The question stays unanswered: "why have you forsaken me".  

The last two paintings provide a clue to Newman's quest for the sublime and a path to infinity, art's higher goal than a search for beauty. Inspired by the indigenous art from the Northwest Coast of North America he wrote about the typical Kwakiutl artist: "For him, a shape was a living thing, a vehicle for abstract thought-complex, a carrier of the awesome feelings he felt before the terror of the unknowable."  "The Kwakiutl artist, the abstract shape he used, his entire plastic language, was directed by a ritualistic will towards metaphysical understanding." The art historian Robert Rosenblum wrote about Newman in his essay on The Abstract Sublime: "(Barnett Newman) ...explores a realm of sublimity so perilous that it defies comparison with even the most adventurous Romantic explorations into sublime nature." Barnett Newman creates art with a new purpose and as a viewer we have to learn new ways to look at it. Contemplation requires time and introspection to reach the spiritual enlightenment the artist aims to communicate. The artist himself wrote about his work in 1967: "I hope that my painting has the impact of giving someone, as it did me, the feeling of my own totality, of his own separateness, of his own individuality and at the same time of his connection to others, who are also separate." One more quote from The First Man was an Artist : "We are creating images whose reality is self-evident and which are devoid of the props and crutches that evoke associations with outmoded images, both sublime and beautiful. We are freeing ourselves of the impediments of memory, association, nostalgia, legend, myth, or what have you, that have been the devices of Western European painting. Instead of making cathedrals out of Christ, man or "life", we are making it out of ourselves out of our own feelings.  The image we produce is the self-evident one of revelation, real and concrete, that we can be understood by anyone who will look at it without the nostalgic glasses of history." With 14 stations about human suffering, could the 15th painting be a sign of hope?  

Donald Judd who wrote extensively about Newman's work stated: "A painting by Newman is finally no simpler than one by Cézanne". Agree. 

                               

  

photographs by the author:

"First Station" (1958)

View of the gallery

"Be II" (1961/1964)