Low Art at the High

"Companion Passing Through", 2010, from KAWS is sitting on the Sifly Piazza at the entrance of the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, an introduction to the exhibition "KAWS: Down Time". According to the artist, the gigantic grey fiberglass character is inspired by "The Thinker" from Rodin. The hybrid figure, with the iconic XX on the hands, appears miserable. Lonely and self-centered, he covers his eyes to escape reality, indifferent to his surroundings, lost in the courtyard.

Now 38 years of age, KAWS or Brian Donelly became famous a decade ago. Then a graffiti artist, he has moved on, from the street to the museum, where his work is represented with a large mural, paintings, drawings and toys for an exclusive exhibition curated for the High. Upstairs, CHUM, another well-known character inspired by The Michelin Man is standing high, inhibited, proud, like a modern Kouros (in keeping with the reference to Rodain). The museum proceeds with two large paintings bright and flat, directly inspired by graffiti. One cannot forget the background of KAWS. The paintings are aggressive in their colors, the subjects are benign and distracting inspired by a world of onomatopoeia "Splash", "Zoom", "Beep"... A room is filled with smaller paintings lined up along the walls, toys and small sculptures. Our inner child is satisfied, the well-known characters are just KAWSed and get a fresh look. But it is not a game anymore, in an adult world this is business: logos, limited editions, shoes, T-shirts, lightbulbs... Last time I checked the website, the items were sold out and I got alerted "protection, warning, do not copy the link to the site..."

Like Takashi Murakami and others, the pop artist has become a businessman.

The weird giant character is growing bigger and has been selected to float above the next Macy's parade, fourty feet long.

photographs by the author

Story Sketching

Bill Traylor at age 85 drew his childhood's world from memory. A slave on a plantation, later emancipated, he grew up on a farm in Alabama. It is not surprising that his drawings represent mainly farm animals or the occasional elephant from the circus coming through town. They also include local people and "exciting events" to quote the artist who eventually moved to Montgomery and spent time observing the crowd on Monroe Avenue. He declined to give a title to his productions or explain the scenes which leaves room for interpretation. Some see festive events, others racial attacks and violence. Why are the works of the self-taught artist so important?

An exhibition of Bill Traylor's work just took place at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta with more than sixty drawings, executed between 1939 and 1942 ( the artist produced more than 1200). The visitor plunges in a world seen through the artist's eyes with the first room dedicated to animals, the second room people and last room "exciting events". The works of small size, well protected by frames are made of cardboard, colored pencils and charcoal. The result is a succession of barking dogs, angry cats with red eyes, fighting with threatening teeth, rabbits and elephants, people in their best clothes, men with top hats, women with fancy handbags and upside down compositions. The stories are lively, like cartoons, represented by humorous scenes, with dogs chasing people chasing dogs or more serious subjects with men carrying guns hunting...what or who? The bird is trying to catch a fly of disproportionate size, already reaching the edge of the cardboard. This creates tension: will the fly escape? will the bird catch its prey?

Looking closer, the drawings are built from simple shapes silhouetted with a pencil, rectangles, triangles assembled like a puzzle and colored with mainly red, blue sometimes green or brown. Profile is usually the preferred angle for faces. The technique is simple and the result is a flat composition without perspectives. The subjects appear weightless, floating on the background. 

Why is it called art? Because it transcends the daily world.

The artist did not know how to write. Shapes and colors were his ABC's. Plunging into his visual memory, he was able to talk about a world he knew, with his own language. Some people are story tellers, he was a great "story sketcher".

photographs by the author

Dali: The Paintings

My latest reading is heavy. Before my visit to the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, which latest temporary exhibition features Dali, I started to read the book produced by Robert Descharnes and Gilles Neret. "Dali: The Paintings."

Composed of two volumes, Part I (1904 till 1946) and Part II ( 1946 till 1989), it includes 1648 illustrations and tells the great story of Dali. It contains extensive quotes from Dali's "Secret Life". The book is full of anecdotes which allow us to understand the complex human being and his conflicts.
The reporting of everyday events, like the story of his inspiration for the "Soft Watches" (the idea struck Dali one evening after eating camembert for dinner), never becomes mundane. We learn about Dali's anxieties, including his difficult relationships with women. His first meeting with Gala, who became is wife, is touching, and like any love story is unique. A detailed account of Dali's life including his relationship with his father, his friends, his financial difficulties and more, helps the reader understand the complexity of the man and the artist who was often called a genius and often misunderstood (he enjoyed both).
The reader can follow the maturation of the artist through his different periods, presented in the context of the art movements of the time with the history of his life in the background.
The book is also an extensive compilation (not a catalogue raisonne) of the artist's works with enlightening comments from the authors.

Some of the quotes from Dali's Secret Life :

" As a child I adored that noble prestige of old people, and I would have given all my body to become like them, to grow old immediately! I was the anti-Faust. Wretched was he who, having acquired the supreme science of old age, sold his soul to unwrinkle his brow and recapture the unconscious youth of his flesh! Let the labyrinth of wrinkles be furrowed in my brow with the red-hot iron of my own life, let my hair whiten and my step become vacillating, on the condition that I can save the intelligence of my soul."

"One day it will have to be officially admitted that what we christened reality is an even greater illusion than the world of dreams."

And many more...

Dali was looking for eternity...his work is timeless.

The High...

... is the Museum of Art in Atlanta. Named after the High family who donated the land on Peachtree Street. The High is located in Midtown and is easy to spot: a congregation of white buildings added over the years.

Richard Meyer (1934), who favors the color white, designed a 135,000-square-foot building in 1983. Two new buildings were added in 2002 to expand the museum's size to 312,000 square feet. The architect for this project is Renzo Piano (1937).

The color white is the only common feature between the buildings. The curvy building from Meyer otherwise clashes with the angulous shapes from Renzo Piano. Piano's style, who built the Menil Collection in Houston, is recognizable, but due to its scale, the buildings looks like vast, windowless, graceless hangars. The one level museum in Houston, also white, has a mediterranean flavor and the system of panels to filter the sunlight brings an extra nautical or aerial touch. Adding to the coldness of the High is the grey cement courtyard as opposed to the fresh green lawn in Houston.


Walking through the entrance, the visitor is surprised by the brightness of the surroundings and the vast space of the atrium which spreads from the first floor to the skyway level, white with a touch of blue through the glass ceiling (the day of the visit).

At each level, balconies overlook the central area, and a gently inclined walkway brings the visitors to the different levels.

The three buildings (the Stent Wing, the Wieland Pavillion, the Anne Cox Chambers Wing) are connected by glass bridges.

To the left, "Mouth #15" Tom Wesselman, 1968

There is no shortage of space for the permanent exhibition. Large walls and wood floors, the setting is ideal. However, the visit was short due to the lack of interesting collections. European, American paintings, sculptures, crystal, furnitures...the collections are sparse and made of minor works .

The goal of my visit was to see the temporary exhibition "Dali: The Late Work". The works were crammed on the walls or in the corners. The rooms were packed, full of visitors brought by this unique exhibition showing some rarely seen works. They were unable to take the few steps back and forth necessary to appreciate the visual effects of some of the paintings (for example: "Fifty Abstract Paintings") and feel the full impact of the monumental compositions like "Santiago El Grande". The temporary exhibition was not given the space it deserves.

The High has a lot of space, what about the content?

"The Shade" a sculpture from Rodin is a gift from the french governement to the High. 106 Atlanta arts patrons who died in an airplane crash at Orly airport in Paris in 1962.

"House III" Roy Lichtenstein, 1997 decorates the side of Meier's building.



photographs by the author

"Academic Surrealist or Surrealist Academician"

The High Museum of Art in Atlanta presents a well publicized exhibition titled: "Dali: the Late Work.". On display are the works produced during four decades (1940's till the 1980's) by the prolific artist. It could be called his post-Surrealist period ( he was banned from the Surrealist movement in 1934).

The first room is an introduction with photographs from Philippe Halsman showing the artist in various poses. The photographs from the series "The Cosmic Dali" are well-known with "Dali Atomicus" (1948), "Mid Summer Night's Mare" (1949) among others, a total of fifteen photographs to wet our appetite.

The second room is occupied by ten small paintings executed between 1930 and 1940, at a time when Dali was part of the Surrealist movement. Theses paintings represent for me the Dali I know the best. I came to see the late works.

Finally, the visitor reaches the subject of the exhibition. The gigantic canvasses, including "Madonna of Port Lligat" 1950, "Santiago El Grande" 1957, "Christ of St John of the Cross" 1951, "Assumpta Corpucularis Lapilazulina" 1952 have not been displayed in the United States since the 50s. A mixture of Surrealism and Classicism, they define the religious period of the artist. Dali mixes his own symbols (horns from rhinoceros, eggs from ostriches) and religious symbols. Gala, his wife becomes the virgin Mary. Pope Pius XII encouraged Dali to pursue his search for religion, the painter became an iconoclast in the process.

The technique of the artist is flawless. For the "Christ of St John of the Cross" , he uses chiaroscuro. The special angle looking at Christ from above makes the viewer feel like being God looking at the crucified subject who himself is looking down to the fishermen, representing us, the viewers.

The visit continues with Dali's preoccupations: genetic, atom, the search for eternity are the subjects of the works, lithogaphs, prints, paintings. He mixes art, science and some charlatanism.




A small room is dedicated to Dali, the illustrator: "Don Quixote", "Ten recipes for Immortality", "The divine Comedy" . These lithographs are well known, a reminder of the quality of the artist. The prints are technical masterpieces.

Random portraits of famous personages can be seen in a corner, also, in the same area, a few jewels and Dali's game of chess, his experimentation with holography, two videos for tired visitors, more photographs from Halsman. This section of the exhition does not flow well. It is just "put together".


Dali is also the precursor of Pop art. "Portrait of my Dead Brother" 1963, "Fifty Abstract Paintings" 1963, "The Sistine Madonna" 1958 are crammed with among other works the sculpture titled: "White Eagle" 1974. Unfortunately, the space is very crowded, and this visual experience is hampered by the size of the room.

And then, it is over. The special Dali store is right there, one can buy fake mustaches, cups with Dali's portrait, jewels...

As a whole I was deceived by the exhibition...not by Dali. The rarely seen works deserved a better setting. The High Museum of Art is not short of space and could have used three times the square footage for this exhibition to give it its full impact. It would also allow a better flow of the crowd.

Dali, Don Quixotte

photographs are reproductions from the book: " Dali: The Paintings" from Robert Descharmes and Gilles Neret, made by the author

1. "St. James of Compostela", 1957
2. "Landscape at Port Lligat", 1950
3. illustration for "pages choisies de Don Quichotte de la Manche" by Joseph Foret, 1957