Big Things at Hirshhorn

 

"Immersed in art" is not a figure of speech at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C. It sums up the visitors' experience at the latest exhibition Big Things for Big Rooms. The straightforward title describes ten installations set in a succession of galleries on the third floor of the museum, a collection of diverse works spanning from the sixties until today, representing art movements from color field to land art and more. 

An explosion of colors at the entrance comes from a huge painting-sculpture, Light Depth (1969) from Sam Gilliam. A commission from the Corcoran Gallery of Art, it is a quintessential work of the artist's Drape paintings and a fitting start to the exhibition. Sam Gilliam born in Tupelo, Mississippi, spent his adult life in Washington where he became a prominent member of the District's arts community and was nicknamed the "Dean" in recognition of his influence. In contrast, Untitled (1969) from Robert Irwin is a sober piece made of shadows created by four white spotlights shining through a frosted clear disk, drawing organic shapes on the white wall. The flower-like pattern reaches a perfection found in nature with a dark band in the center like a pistil. The recently deceased artist (1928-2023) was part of the Light and Space movement prominent in California in the sixties and seventies. The following installation, Carrara Line (1985) from Richard Long could be a model for a land art piece set in the great outdoors: the narrow rocky white path running almost the whole length of the gallery invites the visitor for a walking meditation. The pure line of Carrara marble enhanced by the grey floor may lead to nowhere or to eternity. Minimalism and light art define the work from Dan Flavin (1933-1996) represented by "monument" for V. Tatlin (1967), one of the thirty-nine versions of the series started in 1964 ending in 1990, tribute to a beacon of the Constructivist movement Vladimir Tatlin. Set at floor level along the wall, the reductive neon sculpture splashes white light reflecting on the shiny ground. A blinding white, Théia 1, A (1979/2025) from Lygia Pape is a small piece representative of her Ttéia series. The ethereal corner piece made of tenuous gold threads seems to appear and disappear in a shifting interaction with the viewer walking by. A monumental spidery installation from the same series Ttéia 1, C (2003/2025) was recently on view at Bourse de Commerce/Pinault Collection for her first solo show in France, appropriately titled Weaving Space. Lygia Pape was a prominent member of the neo-concrete movement in Brazil. The natural light coming through a row of windows and the view of the neoclassical buildings across the Mall compete with Cloud (H2O) (2006), the installation from Spencer Finch suspended from the ceiling of the vast "Lerner Room". The ninety-five "water molecules" (white light bulbs arranged in a horizontal “Y” shape, with trios composed of two smaller bulbs and one large bulb connected by black metal rods as described in the brochure) are engineered to form a cloud-like construction easily mistaken for a decorative lightning. In contrast, Moon Dust (Apollo 17) (2009) brought dreams and poetry to the lobby of the Baltimore Museum of Art for several years. Installations can be overshadowed by their surroundings.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  

Following the intermission, part two of the exhibition starts with Round Rainbow (2005), a work from Olafur Eliasson set in a smaller dim gallery. Through a machinery (tripod, light, glass ring) easily disregarded, the magician of light creates fleeting shadows of orbs, spirals, volutes, resolving in rainbows, mirages on the walls, ways to reach a realm beyond time and space. The quiet visit is interrupted by loud sounds coming from a huge wooden shipping crate in the next gallery, its opening facing away. Inside, an absurdist video with a humorous twist features an endless loop of "chew, pass, wipe, pass back, receive, pack" between female protagonists in a satire about human physical labor and female exploitation in a capitalist economy. The commodity is human sweat and saliva, the final product, lemon-scented wipes. Boxes of "Tropical Breeze", their commercial name, are stacked high outside and inside the container, ready to be shipped. The installation Tropical Breeze (2004) from Mika Rottenberg is more than twenty years old and may not sustain the passage of time in a new age of robots. The refreshing site specific installation from Rashid Johnson is like a tropical island made of a metal skeleton filled with an exuberant greenery, homey props, and decorated with minimalist white light fixtures. The Changes (2025) offers a healing place, a refuge where the visitor can be vulnerable, a home. The conceptual piece can leave you indifferent or filled with empathy triggered by the live plants, the artist's goal. The last "big thing" is Third Light (2006) from a series The 7 Lights (2005-2007) about the seven-day creation narrated in the Bible. Paul Chan's installation combines sculptural elements, a rustic wooden table on sawhorses in the middle of the room, and animation with shadow silhouettes of objects and human figures floating on rectangular puddles of varied colored lights coming from a projector. The third day of the creation is about the apparition of life on earth. The fourteen-minute show leaves plenty of time to meditate on light or its absence, on enlightenment or lack of it. 

The ten works require more than the average thirty seconds usually allotted by visitors to view a piece of art. The selected diverse installations require a total physical and mental immersion to be fully taken in. Slow Art Day is April 11 this year. Here the only way to interiorize the art is a slow visit. At the end of the show, a small comfy room with deep armchairs is an invitation to browse through books and read quotes from each artist posted on the walls like Robert Irwin's "Seeing is forgetting the name of the thing one sees" or Dan Flavin's: "I am not interested in creating objects, but rather in creating experiences."   

                                                        

photographs by the author:

-Rashid Johnson "The Changes" (2025

-Mika Rottenberg "Tropical Breeze" (2004)

-Sam Gilliam "Light Depth" (1969)

"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

Gone to the Fair

This month saw the first online edition of Frieze New York. Starting the 8th of May, the week long event allowed plenty of time to visit the two hundred and thirty nine galleries and view more than four thousand works of art. The visit could start by selecting a list of sites according to location (every continent was represented minus Antarctica), section (Spolight, Non profit, Main Galleries, Dialogos, ...), artist gender (Female, Male, Transgender, Non-binary or Other), price bracket or medium.
The registration was free and allowed to enter the "viewing rooms" which also provided direct access to the galleries' websites.
I relish visiting art fairs, Frieze London, FIAC, Miami Art Basel, The Armory Show, this time, I logged into Frieze New York, alone in front of my computer.
Color distortion, loss of texture, fuzzy lines, skewed depth, size, missing shadows and reflections, among the drawbacks of looking at photographs of artworks, the lack of physical interaction is the most frustrating for me. During my repeated visits to the online platform, I appreciated pieces from artists I encountered at previous shows but new ones stayed mute. I most likely would have just given a glance at a painting from Torkwase Dyson featured by Pace Gallery, if I had not seen the exhibition Torkwase Dyson: Black Compositional Thought/ 15 Paintings for the Plantatiocene at the New Orleans Museum of Art before its temporary closure. Looking at the image of a midnight blue and black composition filled with white geometric drawings on the screen, I would have missed the spiritual dimension of her work by skipping the act of contemplation which can only occur in front of the real thing. A photograph of James Turrell's light piece brought back memories of my visit at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and the adventure of going through the exhibition James Turrell: a Retrospective, bathing in colors, disoriented at times. I kept clicking my mouse for more.
Of course the fair on line has some advantages, especially for collectors, with prices displayed next to most artworks' photographs and I was able to visit daily for a whole week. I even fantasized about owning paintings I could not afford by projecting them on the white walls of my living room, thanks to AR (augmented reality) available on the Frieze New York app.

The new immersive technology (AR) is creeping in the art world making its debut at the fair with its own section called "Acute Art". The  website of the same name was launched timely in March and is described as "a new art platform that transforms the way we collect, trade and live with art". Indeed. After downloading the app and some practice, I was able to experience free digital art samples, small versions of COMPANION (EXPANDED), graffiti (sounds included) from  KAWS and objects from a "cabinet of curiosities" called AR WUNDERKAMMER created by Olafur Eliasson. It was fun to decorate walls with clouds, rainbows, or arrange virtual sculptures of COMPANION on the floor. Like in a magical world, objects would appear and disappear with a glide of my fingers while my eyes stayed glued to the screen of my phone. The business part happens on the website: for 10,000 dollars, I could own a 1.8 meter sculpture (edition of 25) from KAWS, download it on the app and project my newly acquired piece of art in my surroundings. Next, I could send pictures (shot with my phone camera) to my friends and share them on social media. Of course, I would receive a digital certificate of authenticity. Later, when tired of the work or to get my money back, I could sell it again on the site and feed a secondary market. The simple operation offers a way to trade art while bypassing galleries, fairs and auction houses.
How will this new field evolve? Future will tell, but museums have already adopted VR, AR, and we can predict that smartphones will multiply when they reopen. Will artists change their practice to adapt to this new technology?
It's a brand new world, but I can't wait to visit the next fair in the flesh.

photographs by the author:

Painting from Torkwase Dyson at the New Orleans Museum of Art

COURAGEOUS FLOWERS from Olafur Eliasson and AT THIS TIME (EXPANDED) from KAWS in my living room

THE SCOTTS from KAWS in my living room.

Second Look

Ear to the Ground: Earth and Element in Contemporary Art at the New Orleans Museum of Art features eighteen artists, each represented by a work selected from the museum's or the artist's  collection. As suggested in the title, all relate to the four elements: water, earth, wind, fire, and the natural world through various media. The exhibition occupies the contemporary art space on the museum's second floor.

After walking through the display and reading the detailed wall texts found next to each work, I spent some time in front of two pieces which captured my interest for different reasons. My encounter with Persian Waterfall, 1990, one of the famous "Waterfall" paintings from Pat Steir was a non-event. A rapid glance revealed white drips with splashes on a black background and I carried on with the visit. My first impression is never final and I went back for a second look. What did I miss? The seventy-eight-year old artist is in the news lately with two well publicized exhibitions: ongoing at the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia with eleven commissioned works for Silent Secret Waterfalls and upcoming, a site specific exhibition for the circular space at the Hirshhorn in Washington, DC. This time, I walked TO the painting from the show's "entrance" all the way back, staring at it, ignoring the surroundings. It grew bigger as I came closer (no surprise!) but it also became alive. Immersed in the painting, twice my size in height, even larger in width, I finally "saw it". Through the techniques introduced by the Chinese "ink-splashing" painters centuries ago, Pat Steir captures the spirit of nature. Splashing, pouring paint on the canvass, by chance, the artist created the powerful and dynamic waterfall with skills she describes as control of the "fluidity, gravity and timing... the timing of the pour" making her Waterfall paintings qualify as performance art.

Who would not be attracted by The Hinged View, 2017, from Olafur Elliasson? The artist, also involved in creating waterfalls in New York City (2008), this time deals with the visible light spectrum through six glass spheres lined up on a black metal stand. Walking by, the visitor animates the display. Like planets, the spheres appear to rotate, changing from black to transparent, and even reflect an upside down pic of the viewer at some point. Their respective color seeps in and transforms them in vibrant red, orange, yellow, green, blue and violet orbs when facing them. About color, light and beyond, alluding to the unseen spectrum and other dimensions, the piece is in the vein of Elliasson's works.  I was just baffled by the wall text next to it which states: "created against the backdrop of the 2016 presidential election in the United States, Elliasson's sculpture seeks to heighten perceptual awareness as a way of counteracting the polarizing nature of current political discourse."... Would the artist endorse these comments? Can we look at art without searching for some hidden political intend? Art can be political and sometimes it is not.
It is a great responsibility to be the viewer, it takes second looks!  I cannot agree more with Olafur Elliasson who during an interview in 2018 stated: "Without the viewer, there is nothing"


photographs by the author:
Pat Steir "Persian Waterfall", 1990
Olafur Elliasson "The Hinged View", 2017

Steiner and Visual Arts

Who is Rudolph Steiner? A giant photograph of the "philosopher, architect, sociologist, humanist and visionary" greets the visitor, along a description of his life and his accomplishments at the DOX, Centre for Contemporary Art, located in a northern neighborhood of Prague.

Steiner (1861-1925) is the founder of Anthroposophy, an esoteric philosophy with links to Theosophy. Its goal is to develop inner spiritual knowledge, independently of sensory experiences. Steiner applied his theories to various fields, including agriculture, medicine, pedagogy, architecture, dance, music (he developed eurythmy) and more. He designed the Goetheanum in Switzerland and several other buildings and his pedagogical movement is still widely followed with over 1000 Waldorf schools worldwide. He never claimed to be an artist, he was a philosopher.
What is the impact of Anthroposophy on the art? Artistic expression becomes a path, a medium to create a bridge between spiritual and material worlds. The art inspired by Anthroposophy is aimed at the awakening of inner spiritual energy.

The Dox presents two exhibitions: "Thinking without Limits: Inspired by Rudolph Steiner" and " Rudolph Steiner and Contemporary Art". The first is didactic and starts with writings from Steiner displayed in glass cases, followed by photographs and the paintings from artists who lived in Prague and Vienna at the start of the 20th century. Occultism, Theosophy and other esoteric philosophies influence the subjects of the works. The artists, among them Alois Bilek, Joseph Vachal, Karel Novak, Frantisek Drtikol, are unknown to the me and I found most the paintings mediocre. To my surprise, Kandinsky who was exposed to the theories of Steiner during his stay in Vienna, was not mentioned. The symbols found in his works evoke some similarities with Steiner's blackboards circles, arrows and lines representing the universe and also our inner self. Kandinsky went beyond the theory and built a spiritual world through his creations.

The exhibit flows without transition and the visitor is exposed to works from international artists, in search of spirituality, not necessarily related to anthroposophy. Among them, I discovered Joseph Beuys who was deeply inspired by the theories of Steiner and also used blackboards as a media. I found new dimensions to the works from Anish Kapoor and Olafur Eliasson. "When I Am Pregnant" (1992), a sculpture from Kapoor, is glowing from inside and creates a surrounding halo on the wall. It reaches perfection in smoothness, roundness, whiteness and ultimately purity. An area is dedicated to Olafur Eliafsson with "Before the Star Lamp" (2010) and "Power Tower" (2005). Plays with lights, reflections, shadows, create an ever changing world from the source with a whole universe of satellites. I noticed the sculptures from Karel Malich who was deeply inspired by Steiner's philosophy. He transforms a common material into ethereal creations floating in space. Steiner's works are represented by several of his famous blackboards, drawn spontaneously during his lectures to illustrate his theories. These were teaching tools and without the comments of the lecturer, are staying silent and hermetic. The exhibition with more than 70 displays, includes works from Giuseppe Penone, Mario Merz, Helmut Federle, Tony Cragg and to consider their philosophical dimension give them their full impact.

Thought provoking, it renews the interest for a philosophy which has still a strong impact on today's art and most likely centuries to come...
a reminder that Rudolph Steiner's legacy lives on.

photographs by the author:

"Atlantis" Richard Pollack Karlin, 1914-191

"Power Tower" Olafur Eliasson, 2005

"When I Am Pregnant" Anish Kapoor, 1992

sculpture, Karel Malich, 1976-1980