"Dancing String Bean" and more at the NOAAM

The French Quarter Fest is in full swing and the Treme is quiet today, soaking in the afternoon sun.

On Governor Nichols Street, the NOAAM (New Orleans African American Museum) presents a new exhibition featuring works from Eugene Martin (1938-2005), titled "Dancing String Bean: Paintings and Drawings by Eugene Martin".

The hall is lightened by the colors of several paintings, two of larger size, "The Happy Bartender" and "The Duchess of Texas", both 1994 and on the other side, four paintings, smaller but with the same construction: a background made of colors delineated by sharp lines building a frame and fluid shapes to describe the subject in the center and tell a story. Violet and brown are sometimes used to bring drama (Untitled 2000), but the message is usually happy with a touch of irony.

Then, I concentrated on the drawings, lined up carefully along the walls. The earlier ones, made with ink and bamboo sticks on paper, with weird little personages, cousins of "Ubu", like in "Avoiding Rush Hour" with an upside down moon. The drawings come to maturity with the next set. One of them gives the title to the exhibition.

When looking at these, the viewer, unknowingly, is engaged in the process of seing. The artist is using a well-known optical illusion (cognitive type) described by Joseph Jastrow who drew the famous "Rabbit or Duck?" (1899). Black or white, white or black, the viewer can choose or rather his/her brain. But this becomes too scientific, let yourself enjoy the subjects about happiness , love, dance, .... Just look again...The technique of the drawings is very clean and gracious in its simplicity.

Paintings from the artist can also be viewed in Baton-Rouge, at the Shaw Center for the Art during the exhibition titled "Beyond Black: Ed Clark, Eugene Martin and John T. Scott". The works are more challenging, with the same vivid colors but a sophisticated message. The same irony flavors the works from different periods: whimsical, playful, happy!

I am still discovering the prolific artist. My only regret about the exhibition is the small space ( used at its best by the curator) allowed for the show.

The energy of the colors and the subjects of Eugene Martin bring joy and happiness. Leaving the museum, I can hear a faint music. My imagination? Eugene Martin's works are jazzing.

NOAAM, photograph by the author

all other photographs, courtesy Marie Vinouze, curator of the exhibition.

"The Duchess of Texas", 1994

"Dancing String Bean"

The exhibition at the NOAAM

Social on Julia Street

Last evening, on Julia, there was art and people were invited to jam. A Spring tradition, "Jammin' on Julia" is well advertised. The crowd is thinner each year and showed little enthusiasm yesterday...Why? Food and music are at the rendez-vous, what about art? Le Mieux Gallery was presenting two artists. Nathan Durfee with "Moments Behind the Eyes", characterized by his anachronistic personages, with their heads in a bubble, isolated and dreamlike. The technique is a mixture of realism interrupted by pixelated areas and naive. The result is disconcerting. Kathryn Hunter is the other featured artist, with bright colored cuttings. "Confluence" is about animal and human relationships. The Jonathan Ferrarra Gallery and Arthur Roger Gallery did not bother to bring a new show, and I had already spent plenty of time a month ago looking at the new works of Dawn Dedeaux. Paul Campbell's works were displayed at the Heriard-Cimino Gallery. "Koosh" is a series of paintings made with paint-soaked koosh balls and strings saturated in paint. The result is described as "a delicate dance of formal composition and spontaneous chaos." I felt like the repetitive act with random results produced flat works, decorative at best. Finally, I visited Gallery Bienvenu presenting its yearly show of Raine Bedsole's works. The boats with their mystery and symbolism create a strong impression on me. Unfortunately, the mass production of the boats, in all sizes to accommodate buyers, and different colors to match interiors, weakens the message.They are becoming repetitive and meaningless. What about new works? One of the space has become a "Spa" where the visitor can let his/her inner talent flow. The well aligned canvasses were waiting for customers. Artists and gallerists beware, there is no art without viewers.

photographs by the author from top to bottom:

"Ethan Was Studying and Had no Time To Save the Planet" Nathan Durfee

"Stormed" Kathryn Hunter

Rayne Bedsole

Nothingness? Abstract Art?

How to describe "nothing" or "nothingness" defined as something inconsequent, of no significance?

"Pictures of Nothing: Abstract Art since Pollock" is a book composed of six chapters transcribed from six lectures delivered by the fifty-second Mellon lecturer, Kirk Varnedoe, at the National Gallery of Art during the Spring of 2003.

The first lecture gives an overwiew of the subject, and set the stage for the next five. The author makes references to Professor Gombrich, a previous lecturer, who presented abstract art as "being, at best, whims of trendy fashion, and, at worst, tainted with the most dangerous policies of totalitarian thoughts". After laying out the arguments of the detractors (hoax, propaganda, pictures of nothing...), Kirk Varnadoe with a deep knowledge of the subject, rehabilitates abstract art, corroborating his thoughts with abundant examples, illustrated with numerous photographs to make his point.

He helps the reader (or listener) to make sense of the history of abstract art, starting with the influence of Russian constructivism, to the Bauhaus, and its influence on french art and art in New York, Italian futurism and Pop art. The book is dense and the author goes in depth, discussing artists and their works to build the case for abstract art from Pollock, Tony Smith, Richard Serra, Ellsworth Kelly, Piet Mondrian...The history of abstract art unfolds.

A whole chapter is dedicated to minimalism which was a reaction to Pollock's abstract expressionnism . "Less is more", with differences between East Coast and West Coast minimalism, the West Coast being more Venetian (with softer colors and materials) and the East Coast more Tuscan (hard-edged). I must confess, this is the first time I understand the works from Donald Judd, McCracken and others. Activating the space around the work, making the viewer aware of the space around the work, is a new concept brought by minimalism.

After this presentation of minimalism,the next chapter, which you could expect, is about the evolution of minimalism, the reaction to the movement, with sometimes facetious works, presented in the chapter titled "satire, irony and abstract art". It is a side of abstract art, I was not familisr with . The author puts in parallels works from Roy Lichtenstein and Mondrian or Vasarely or Oldenburg and Brancusi, for example. It ends with a detailed study of Cy Twombly and Jasper Johns works.

The title of the last chapter is "abstract art now", now being then, 2003.

The six chapters, written each to be a lecture, are not disconnected and keep the reader interested by this history of abstract art since the 1950s. Kirk Varnedoe is a great lecturer (and writer) displaying in a very entertaining manner, his vast knowlege. The illustrations are plentiful and well chosen. Notes at the end of each chapter and references at the end of the book bring more information about the sources used by the author.

Abstract art is a challenge for the viewer who has to be engaged when looking at it. This book will help the viewer because:

"Understanding the tradition of abstract art sharpens our experience of what we are seing". "For those who learn it (the tradition of abstract art), it can make something out of nothing".

photographs by the author

"Four-Sided Pyramid", Sol Le Witt, 1997

"Black Plank", McCracken, 1967

"Circle I" and "Circle II", David Smith, 1962

"Number 1" (Lavender Mist), Jason Pollock, 1950

Empty space

The visit of Blinky Palermo's exhibition at the Hirschhorn becomes an endless walk around the second floor of the museum, with the works of the artist peppering the walls (follow the link to see the photographs.) It is an important retrospective of the works from 1964 till 1977, year of the death of the artist, deceased prematurely on a trip to the Maldive Islands.

For me, it ended up being an intellectual journey. Do not expect emotions, the place appears empty, a dead space. The works representing the periods from the Stoffbilder (fabric paintings) to the Metallbilder, are staying mute. They do not generate any energy. Chromatic, complementary, the colors are for research not for art. The progression along the gallery becomes as boring as listening a student practicing his scales. The works are tedious and at the end sterile. One hopes that the artist eventually uses the colors to send some message...to no avail.

A student of Beuys, defined as a colorist, he also has been called a successor of Matisse and Rothko?

Photograph of the artist, Creative Common

No photographs were allowed

Premonitions

Alexis Rockman's nightmarish works are lining up the walls at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC. " A Fable for Tomorrow" includes 47 paintings representing 25 years of the prolific artist's career. Art? Science? Fiction?

The works are talking about genetic mutations, extinction of the human specie, cross-species copulation, disasters, evolution. Apocalyptic, the message is stark, delivered sometimes with bright or dark colors. The legacy of a culture (ours) is destroyed, annihilated. The paintings describe a strange fauna and flora, peaceful, in harmony, a world populated by ferns, primitive insects or strange mammals, where mankind has no place. They also suggest sounds, like buzzing, chewing, water splashes, animals copulating... Overall, it is a quiet world.

Inspired by the dioramas he gazed at during his childhood's visits to the American Museum of Natural History, by science-fiction movies, or by the painters from the Hudson River school, Bosh, Grunewald, scientists like Von Humboldt, the resulting works are a detailed realism, almost compulsive. Like a scientist, the artist is describing creatures of the future, not created or imagined but carefully researched, at least this is the impression. For example, Evolution, 1992, is a meticulous repertory of 214 plants and animal species. A key is available for the viewer next to the work, like you would find at a museum but in several centuries.

The artist mingles with scientists and went on expeditions in Antarctica and produced "South", 2008, which I thought, is a mediocre composition made of seven panels. He also visited Guyana and brought back illustrations of plants and insects. His most recent period embraces expressionism with his "Big Weather" series depicting tornadoes and severe weather.

The exhibition is timely as the world is watching the events unfold in Japan. The breadth of the message is limited, and I think that it is due to the technique of the artist who has not built his own style to deliver it. He is making references to so many artists from different backgrounds and centuries and the encyclopedic knowledge of the artist stays at one level, weakening the piece of art. Upon leaving the museum, I wondered if I just visited an exhibition sponsored by National Geographic.

photographs by the author

Mardi Gras

Mardi Gras Indians

photograph by the author

Gauguin, the "sauvage"

The retrospective of Gauguin's works has reached our side of the Atlantic. The exhibition was recently a complete success at the Tate Modern. The day of my visit, the attendance at the National Gallery in Washington, DC, should predict the same enthusiasm from the visitors. Two levels of the museum are occupied with 150 paintings, sculptures, drawings, ceramics, starting with self-portraits, and progressing through the life of Gauguin. Like a biography, we can follow the painter evolving, according to new places, new friends or circumstances. I never dreamt of seeing these works , dispersed all over the world, at the same location.

The periods are well represented, the artist abandoned Impressionism rapidly, was for a short period one of the Symbolists , evolved to Cloisonnism and Synthetism. Gauguin marginalizes himself and, at the same time, develops the style he is most remembered for, Primitivism. Alone in Tahiti or the Marquesas Islands, recluse in his own world, he creates his paradise, often ill and surrounded by squalor. At times, unable to afford the supplies to paint, he uses the local woods and makes sculptures. The artist always finds a media to create. He is on a mission: " I am a great artist and I know it. It's because I know it that I have endured such sufferings".

Most of his major pieces are here: Oviri, The Yellow Christ, Spirit of the Dead Watching and so many more. Some of the works are not aging well like Ondine ( my opinion). One could regret the smaller display of his earlier and Brittany period.

The exhibition is about Gauguin, the maker of myths, transcending his surroundings and producing a unique collection of works. In parallel with his search for a sometimes confused mysticism and the Universal, he develops techniques and themes that will inspire future artists.

Most art lovers think they know Gauguin, at least I did. But I realized that my knowledge was fragmented. This retrospective, the first in the United States since 1980, gave me the opportunity to look at the works again in a more organized fashion, allowing me to understand the artist. I found the comments somewhat brief, of course the catalogue is always a good resource. Instead, I reread the book written by Bengt Danielsson " Gauguin in the South Seas" and the "Journal des Iles" from Victor Segalen who landed in Tahiti and the Marquesas Islands a few months after Gauguin's death and repatriated some of the works on the boat "La Durance".

photographs 1 and 2 Creative Commons

bottom photograph from website http://www.janesoceania.com/tahiti_gauguin1/index.htm

French speaking? follow the link http://lunettesrouges.blog.lemonde.fr/2010/10/30/gauguin/