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)           

Revisiting Colescott at the Rubell Museum DC

The nearly one hundred works assembled at the Rubell Museum DC for the exhibition American Vignettes: Symbols, Society and Satire include five of Robert Colescott's paintings found in the section labelled "Satire". They  represent a mature stage of his practice, when in his sixties he reached the height of his career. Born in 1925, following a seemingly unremarkable childhood, Colescott went through tempestuous decades in his professional as well as his personal life before settling in Tucson, Arizona, in 1985. Never associated with art movements or groups of artists, he refined his unique technique along his peregrinations, from Paris where under the influence of Fernand Léger he adopted a figurative style to Cairo where he discovered Egyptian art and the rich colors of North Africa. The core of his practice was centered around a theme born from a deep family rift overshadowing his early childhood. On his mother's side, his ancestors were slaves from Southern plantations and his father was of mixed black, white and Native American descent. The couple moved from New Orleans to Oakland, California, looking for better opportunities as "white", leaving their "black" roots in Louisiana. Success unfortunately did not concretize. Colescott who was a light-skinned black person identified as white until his mid-forties, including while in the Army during WWII. Racial identity went deeper than his skin color, and shaped his career.   

New Orleans was the perfect setting to discover Colescott a decade ago at the Arthur Roger Gallery and during the travelling exhibition 30 Americans in 2014 at the Contemporary Art Center. The Crescent City's vibe in sync with his work made it relevant, like being home. This time, the gathering of  five of his large paintings in one room is the occasion to revisit his legacy. Starlet (1976), the earliest, reflects his cartoonish style of the seventies. The poster-like composition features a white Hollywoodian starlet on a snowy background wearing only scarf, woolen hat and gloves, bathing in the light of a projector, as she is pursued by a half-naked suitor under the lewd gaze of the black director. The unabashedly pornographic scene includes in the lower left corner a clapperboard labelled: "Sex On The Slope Scene II" and on top the title written with penises. Funny? Tasteless? Shocking? The previous year, the artist had produced a painting still considered revolutionary and recently bought by The Lucas Museum in Los Angeles (opening in 2026). In George Washington Carver Crossing The Delaware: Page From An American History Textbook (1975), Colescott introduces appropriation to revisit history and challenge the cultural values of the classical painting from Emmanuel Leutze Washington Crossing the Delaware, (1851). At the time, he began a very productive period of his career as he underwent pivotal personal changes, embracing his blackness. 

No subject is off limit for Colescott, including religion. Modern Day Miracles (1988), the title of the next painting hints at a divine intervention. The composition features two different worlds. At the top a white leonine figure with abundant hair and a beard, God in his immaculate gown, ready to have intercourse with a black lady wearing only a pink bra. A blue brushstroke like a slash isolates the scene from a group of smaller black characters at the bottom. The snippets of their domestic life provide a glimpse into black communities aspiring to be part of the American Dream: electricity, food, kitchen appliances, medical care. Fishes are found in a sandwich, in a frying pan on top of a stove, veiled hint  to the Christian religion and its beliefs in miracles. The protagonists appear naïve even submissive and abide by the stereotypes of black portrayal. Only one happy fellow holding a bottle of wine shows his missing teeth through his wide smile. Could God be the artist?         

Most likely inspired by Colescott's sojourns in Egypt in the mid-sixties, Arabs: The Emir of Iswid (How Wide the Gulf) (1992) treats of history, international politics, wars and economies. At the bottom of the painting, two nude females shackled at the wrists sit on oil drums labelled Arabia on the left side and heaps of bananas labelled Africa on the right. In the background, armed soldiers and a group of men wearing keffiyehs surround the captives. Towering the group, the portrait of a powerful figure with two stars on his shoulders profiled on a map of Egypt oversees the brutal scene. Red and green banners with yellow stars complete the setting. Scribbles in Arabic, el-Iswid (an archeological site on the Nile Delta) spelled on the map, three minute silhouettes of oil rigs, bring more to the story which takes a while to decipher. The title gives a clue referring to the Gulf War of 1990-1991, Operation Desert Storm. The black figures could also represent allegories of two cultures: Arabs on the left side, Africans on the right in this attempt at history painting. 

Mythology is a boundless source of inspiration for artists and the story of Pygmalion, the sculptor falling in love with his creation is represented in a number of well-known chef d'oeuvres from Gérôme  to Rodin and was made popular by the famous musical My Fair Lady. At the center of Pygmalion (1987),  Higgins/Colescott dances with his black Elyza. The couple is surrounded by a black face version of two  females defining the canons of beauty, Mona Lisa on the right and the Venus de Milo on the left. Accessory characters in the process of beautification are represented with curlers at the hairdresser or in front of a mirror. Neglecting scale or perspective, the interwoven portraits, white or black, appear to float on a tight background of geometric abstract patterns or blue skies. A lonely wide-eyed male at the bottom center raises his eyebrows, disapprovingly. The lively round of personages contributes to a story  about the pressure on the black community to conform to white European standards of beauty, smothering their culture. The story of Pygmalion fits the artist who claimed "I am playing God with a woman". 

A commemorative medallion of the Louisiana Purchase, historic treaty between France and the United States in 1803, overshadows Sunset on the Bayou (1993). Two white males exchange a purse filled with gold coins to seal the casual transfer of land and its people as a brown pelican, Louisiana's State Bird, looks on. In contrast to the official portraits, quintessential New Orleans scenes fill the rest of the painting. A mother cuddles her daughter as the caption mentions quadroon and octaroon and another caption in French reads "we do not talk about these things". These "things" are drops of blood which defined status in a complex creole society. The personal struggle of Colescott, tormented by his racial background which tore his family apart, is reflected in this very Southern story. Always deflecting the pain with a touch of humor, he includes a po'boy for a smile and also a caricature of the "black" person as seen by white people.  

In 1997, the selection of Robert Colescott, first African-American artist to represent the United States with a solo show at the Venice Biennale, brought its share of controversy, and the nineteen paintings on view were qualified as "kind of competent American regionalist narrative painting" by the art advisor Allan Schwartzman. In 2022 the first retrospective of Colescott's work in thirty years took place at the New Museum in New York City. Art and Race Matters: The Career of Robert Colescott allowed to revisit his legacy in today's context. He was a pioneer, unwavering in his mission to give black culture a voice in history. He chose appropriation, satire, and in an obsessive way treated of race and sex, introducing transgressive art through bold narratives, regardless of cultural sensitivities. He paved the way to a new generation of artists like Carrie May Weems, Kara Walker, Kerry James Marshall,... the list goes on.

Just remembering Colescott's quote when looking at the five paintings: "I am not a writer. I present an image that can leave it to you to write the story." 

  

                                                        

photographs by the author:

"Modern Day Miracles", 1988

"Sunset on the Bayou", 1993

"Pygmalion", 1987

Next to the gift shop at Hirshhorn

 

What do Banksy and Basquiat have in common? Both their names start with a B, both are graffiti artists and both are famous with works reaching sky high prices. An exhibition at the Hirshhorn simply titled Basquiat X Banksy highlights the connection between the two artists who never met. Basquiat died in 1988 from a drug overdose and shadowy Banksy still very much alive, born in or near Bristol, of unknown birth date, graces buildings in various countries with his works. The latest, a series of animals, appeared in August 2024 closer to home in London. The exhibition scheduled to last more than a year is located in the basement, next to the gift shop.     

From the outset, the star of the show is Basquiat with his giant black and white portrait photograph covering a whole wall at the entrance. Under his gaze, we progress along a maze of ropes set to control the crowd (absent today) as we catch a glimpse of "Downtown 81", a movie featuring Basquiat, displayed on a small television screen above our heads. In the first room, the attraction to Boy and Dog in a Johnnypump (1982) from Basquiat is irresistible with its splashes of Caribbean colors, exuberance and size (almost 14 feet wide and 8 feet high). The lively scene of a boy with his dog drenched by the water of an open fire hydrant is filled with fun and glee. Nearby, Banksy's Banksquiat. Boy and Dog in Stop and Search (2018) of similar size, provides an update to the black boy's story. The fiery colors have vanished and the scene of two white policemen on a pale grey background frisking the child is chilling. The scared dog is cowering in fear and the busy officers (one male and one female) fully equipped with manacles and radios surround the  powerless boy, turning the playful activity into an unlawful trespassing. The two paintings made the news in recent years: the former was bought by the famous collector Ken Griffin in 2020 for 100 million, and the latter made a stir when it premiered illegally in the street outside the Barbican in 2017, in conjunction with an exhibition of Basquiat's work. Now protected by a sheet of Perspex, the piece has become a permanent resident on the outside wall of the Barbican. Its museal version made in 2018 on birch wood was auctioned at Phillips for almost 10 million in 2023. Following these two major pieces set in conversation for the first time in a museum, the twenty small framed drawings on paper or wood lent by the collector Larry Warsh require a close attention to be deciphered. Two cartoonish miniature self-portraits (?) with a caption "SAMO as an anti-art form", torn papers on cardboard covered with doodles and lists of random words lacking the poetry of the Surrealists who used the technique to stimulate their creativity, two small collages, one featuring Duchamp's portrait, the other, a warholian piece made with coupons of Chesterfield cigarette packages are accompanied in the last room by a collection of  sketches and scribbles made from 1980 to 1983 at the height of Basquiat's short career. Samples of his visual language: crown, hood, car, train, anatomic parts, symbols, can be found in his larger works. Some visitors will inevitably mumble their thoughts: "My three years old can do that". 

Basquiat's retrospective at the Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris in 2010 at the occasion of his fiftieth anniversary is still vivid in my memory, so are the show at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art during Prospect.3 and random encounters with his works. The display of framed scraps of paper from the graffiti artist who became a celebrated neo-expressionist lessens the impact of his legacy and would be better aimed at collectors, art historians and "art specialists" of all kind, than at the general public.

What about Banksy? Through his peculiar black-and-white stencil technique, the graffiti artist delivers witty political messages, often using appropriation like in this piece. His easy, catchy references, and recognizable design makes him a popular graffiti artist (with a knack for advertisement), a sort of Robin Hood of the art, offering million-dollar works for free to the passerby... works later acquired by celebrities for their private collection. 

The wall texts feel somewhat inflated: "two of today's best known artists", verbose: "Banksy honors Basquiat's legacy while calling attention to the menace of systemic racism that impacted his life and still exists for people of color in many areas of the worlds today" and the curators' attempt to categorize the drawings under headings like "found objects" or "visual language", falls short of its goal. 

Thanks to the collectors eager to share their treasures but it seems that the Hirshhorn Museum opened only its backdoor to the "two of today's best known artists".

photographs by the author:

Jean-Michel Basquiat: "Untitled (train)", 1981

                                    "Untitled (Ego)", 1983

                                    ""Boy and Dog in a Johnnypump", 1982

Banksy: "Banksquiat. Boy and Dog in Stop and Search", 2018  

"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