From Rotterdam to America

The book about Willem de Kooning, "de Kooning, An American Master" by Mark Stevent and Annalyn Swan is thick with approximately 700 pages , including forty chapters, notes, old photographs in black and white, documentation, index and 21 color reproductions of his works from 1921 to 1987 to illustrate the different periods of his production.The life of de Kooning is so filled during its 94 years, the authors had to divide it in periods. Starting with "Holland" narrating his youth followed by "The Immigrant" with the arrival and establishment of the artist in his new country. This leads to "Recognitions" and ultimately his dream becoming true "An American Master". He then moves to the "Springs" starting a new chapter of his life ending with "Twilight".

The book is enthralling with everyday stories about de Kooning and other artists which enlighten the bigger story, the birth of abstract expressionism in New York. I can visualize the artists, understand their interactions like it happened yesterday. I can walk Downtown in NYC and find the places where it happened, the bars, galleries, hanging around artists studios. The reporting is a direct account and the sources are well recorded at the end of the book. De Kooning, rootless, trying to establish himself in America, the evolving friendships with Gorky, Franz Kline, Soutine and in the process, the history of American art told through a captivating story.

It takes an Olympian flavor, with the artist climbing to fame, his struggles, his apogee and then, the slow downfall, unavoidable from alcoholism and dementia. It brings the full dimension of the artist whose legacy takes a historical significance.
De Koooning who travelled to America as a stowaway on a British freighter would love the title "An American Master". The book won a Pulitzer Prize and The National Book Critics Award.

Till January, the MoMA presents de Kooning: a Retrospective .

photograph Wikipedia

"Joy-Art"

Ladislav Sutnar (1897-1976), a Czech-American artist coined the term "Joy-Art" to describe a series of nudes he called "Venuses". In the late sixties, the 65 years old artist, well-known graphic designer, returned to painting (he studied at the Academy of Applied Arts in Prague and was a painter). This Summer, the exhibition at the Rudolfinum in Prague displayed his nudes for the first time.

Sutnar fled the Nazis who had invaded his country and stayed in New York City at the occasion of the World's Fair in 1939. By the time these works were produced, he had assimilated the American culture and condensed its spirit (the artist's vision of it) in these paintings. His commercial designs were influenced by the Bauhaus, De Stijl and Russian Constructivism and he applied minimalism to technology, freeing space to maximize the process of information. The deconstruction of his paintings shows simple shapes juxtaposed to build the subject. They influenced Tom Wesselman's nude paintings.

Lining the walls of four palatial rooms, the giant canvasses are awakening the dark walls. The voluptuous, round curves of the subjects, the pink, lime, red white and blue Americana colors, the exuberant sexuality of the nudes represent another side of Sutnar with his concept of new art for the 21st century: punchy, aggressive, joyous, carefree, vibrant.
The exhibition is pleasant to go through and does not require great intellectual insight or emotional input. The Venuses are flashy, superficial, decorative and represent an advertisement for the Western culture Sutnar embraced. They are in stark contrast with the works from his peers who stayed in East Europe which can be seen at the Kampa Museum across the river.
Colors, shapes, Pop art, "Joy-Art".

Photographs by the author:

"Venus/ All the Way to USA" Ladislav Sutnar, 1968

"Venus/In a Petite Boutique" Ladislav Sutnar, 1968

"Venus/ In Orbit/ On the Top of the World" Ladislav Sutnar, 1967

First in Houston, TX

The first art fair in Houston took place from the 16th till the 18th of September at the George R. Brown Convention Center with eighty-three galleries participating.

Greeted by a giant sculpture from Dubuffet, the visitor had no difficulty finding the galleries with each booth labelled with names and numbers and plenty of space in the aisles.

Twelve galleries from Houston, eleven from Miami, ten from New York City, South America and Europe were also represented.

Each gallery brought plenty of works in the mid-range prices (most a few thousand dollars, a few above 20 000) from not so well-known artists. The exhibitors were conservative and there was no "star" stealing the show.
New Orleans was represented by the Jonathan Ferrara Gallery with a booth filled by Dan Tague's works.
The works from known artists were not of great quality like the only painting from Joan Mitchell or a few from Rauschenberg.

Warhol's works could be acquired at several galleries. Unsigned, they were authenticated by the "Andy Warhol Art Authentication Board". The Brillo fiasco would make me cautious when buying a Warhol (anyway his works are not on my virtual shopping list).
Overall, the fair was well organized, very pleasant. A catalogue with the list of the galleries made it easy to navigate. I found it somewhat dull without surprises from young artists. The Saturday crowd was well-behaved, the gallerists were wearing dark suits and black dresses and did not celebrate sales loudly with champagne like at the FIAC!

But art fairs are about business and the Houston fine art fair reports 6 millions sales and 10 500 visitors, a success for a young fair. It is also about educating the viewers and ultimately transform them into collectors.

photographs by the author

"Incarnation Incantation", James Rosenquist, 1989

"Sally with Skull", Milton Avery, 1946

"Untitled", Harold Shapinsky, 1984

Gordi, local artist and beyond

The Contemporary Art Center presents an interesting exhibition: "Patterns and Prototypes: Tina Girouard and Robert Gordy" curated by Dan Cameron.
Displayed across each other on the whole top floor, the two artists are from Louisiana. I had seen a few works from Gordy in the past, but never a whole exhibition composed by twenty-three paintings.

He exemplifies the Pattern and Decoration movement started in the mid-seventies. His paintings are a repetitive pattern of shapes, like stencils underlined by black lines in an attempt to add a third dimension. Human subjects with a Fernand Leger's flavor are scattered in these busy landscapes. The colors are sometimes bright, sky blues and white but mainly black and dark colors, with vibrant oranges, purples, greens. The paintings overall lack rhythm and could be repeated indefinitely, producing a wallpaper or fabric like feeling.

The pattern and Decoration movement was a weak response to Minimalism and did not produce memorable works. The paintings engender boredom and I did not find this technique inspiring.

Still, Robert Gordy, a local artist, reached a bigger audience due to his style which at the time was in favor.

photographs by the author

Sampling Warhol

Coincidence? It is a Warhol week: 30 Polaroid photographs, one silkscreen, a book of interviews and a movie.
The Newcomb Art Gallery on the Tulane campus presents Pop Shots: Polaroid Portraits by Andy Warhol. The exhibition consists of 30 Polaroid photographs of famous and/or rich models. The framed portraits are lining the walls of one room. Warhol would make fifty to one hundred of these photographs at a sitting and select one shot for the next step, a giant silkscreen portrait of the sitter. A local figure of New Orleans is featured with several Polaroids and the resulting silkscreen work. Warhol became so popular that the subjects were not hiring the artist, they were begging the artist to have a portrait made.

The same week, I found a book about Andy Warhol: "I'll be Your Mirror, The Selected Andy Warhol Interviews", consisting of Thirty-Seven Conversations with the Pop Master, edited by Kenneth Goldsmith, and spanning 30 years, from the 60's till the 80's. I learned a lot about how to interview a reluctant interviewee. Warhol was a man of few words. "What is Pop Art"? answer "Yes", etc... The artist was known to be shy, but his technique during the interviews becomes affectation. After all, he was eager to be in the spotlight. Warhol became more loquacious over the years and even volunteered some information about his lifestyle in his latest interviews including his thoughts about deeper subjects like art.

Finally, I watched a movie on Netflix "13 Most Beautiful...Songs for Andy Warhol's Screen Tests", a succession of approximately five minutes movies lasting for a total of 59 minutes. Each clip is one actor filling the screen, just the face. The subjects are exercising their facial muscles in front of the camera and girls, boys, girls, good actors, manage to stay expressionless with an occasional show of emotion, like a fake tear. The last piece is a girl brushing her teeth for five minutes. The movies are in black and white and play with light and shadows. Considering that they were made in the 60's, they have some historical interest. Andy Warhol preferred to leave the movies unedited for fear of spoiling the subject. I have to confess, I fast forwarded the movie to last twenty minutes. The songs are worth buying the soundtrack.

What is Pop Art? The artist wants the viewer to define the art. We are used to the artist filling his/her work with meanings, symbols and the viewer looking superficially at the art. Andy Warhol braggs that he made the work in an hour for consumption and the viewers are giving value to the piece of art by spending time and money.

This is the art of Warhol, the viewer is filling the cans of soup with symbols, the interviewer is answering the questions, the reader is reading between the lines, the moviegoer is making up his own plot.
His works are a commercial success and he has given a flavor to Pop Art: superficial and empty.

Andy Warhol has become an icon, by picturing famous persons he has become famous. He claims to be the ultimate artist: money and fame. His philosophy? Pop. Business acumen or art? "Making money is art, and working is art and good business is best art".
One can be impressed by the amount of material produced at the Factory and some of the movies are still sitting at the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburg, unseen. Warhol liked to document his life with movies or tape recordings. Anxiety? Precursor of reality TV shows? Performance art?


Warhol succeeded in making the viewer create not only the art, but also the artist.


Photograph by the author:
"Tina Freeman", Andy Warhol, 1975

Ten

"Lives of the Artists" from Calvin Tomkins gives a view of ten artists personal lives. With the material gathered during interviews, casual visits, the art critic who sometimes shadows the artists during their daily activities let the reader "meet the artist".

We learn that Damien Hirst's mind is clearer after a night of drinking, Cindy Sherman is nice, Richard Serra is irascible and ruthless. These artists have nothing in common other than "their works and lifestyles embody the future of contemporary art" Each chapter is the length of an article from the New Yorker, they were initially published in the magazine.

The author's friendly relationship with the artists does not preclude him from making critical remarks about their works.

A glimpse into their lives feeds our thirst for celebrities. What made these ten artists famous? Circumstances, talent, tenacity, pure luck...

Peaking into the lives of Julian Schnabel, Richard Serra, Matthew Barney, make them accessible and also vulnerable. These articles are not biographies, they focus on the "petite histoire".

The ten artists include: Damien Hirst, Cindy Sherman,Julian Schnable, Richard Serra, James Turrell, Matthew Barney, Maurizio Cattelan, Jasper Johns, Jeff Koons, John Currin.

After reading this book, we understand their world better and ultimately their creations.

photographs by the author

Old Palace, Young Artists

Artbanka Museum of Young Art is presenting a temporary exhibition during the Summer months in the empty Colloredo-Mansfeld palace built in the 18th Century, just off Charles Bridge on the Vltava River in Prague.

The crowd is thick in this area full of tourists. Everyone is taking a peek at "Guns", the installation from David Cerny in the courtyard and the cameras are clicking. Sculptures of nudes peaking out of the windows greet the visitors and give a human presence to the facade. It is a great introduction. Most of the crowd walks by and retreats to the streets. I decide to pursue the visit which is organized in three parts for each wing surrounding the courtyard: renowned artists, fine art schools, and the third dedicated to groups and contemporary young artists.

It is an adventure, climbing stairs, getting lost in living rooms with faded mirrors, giant fireplaces and painted ceilings, backrooms, corridors, more stairs... and a flurry of Czech and Slovac young artists works: a flavor of decadence in sink with the art pieces. Works from known artists like Jiri Cernicky, Jiri Davis, Ugo Rondinone and more are side by side with works from less known young artists. The visit is full of surprises like on the top floor, lost , forgotten, a sculpture "Merda d'Artista", provocative, so unexpected, hidden so it can be discovered. The second wing holds works from the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Ostrava, Faculty of Fine Arts, Brno University of Technology, Faculty of Arts, Technical University in Kosice and at the upper level, Academy of Fine Arts in Prague and the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague. I cannot remember all the works, so I took a lot of pictures."Superstar" from the group Kamera Skura occupies the stairwell of the third wing and a whole floor is dedicated to graffiti also works from the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava and solo shows. To top this off, in an adjacent building, the installation from David Cerny, "Shark", a sculpture of Saddam Hussein handcuffed in a glass tank, a parody of Damien Hirst's "The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living".

The number of works is such that it is overwhelming. All major art schools from the Czech and Slovac Republic are represented in a dilapidated palace which is in itself another side of the visit. The result is eclectic, in some areas the works are labelled, in others the name of the artist is missing, most likely due to hasty preparations. The overall impression is an exhibition full of energy, surprises, bursting with ideas, stimulating and fun. It is rare to see the works from art professors, well known artists, students, unknown young artists, group works displayed at the same event.

The combination of location, timing, size and content are predicting a huge success for this exhibition.

Let's not forget Artbanka's goal to promote young artists. This exhibition gives them an opportunity to display their works mostly related to eternal themes of love, death, war but treated with originality, humor, passion, in an historical setting.

The art world in the Czech Republic is alive and well with this new generation of artists.

photographs by the author:

"Guns" David Cerny

"Pegasus Semtex", Jiri Cernicky, 1997

"Superstar", Kamera Skura art group

"Live Your Life", Vladimir Skrepl, 2011

"Fucking 15 Minutes" Reality art group

"All My Bad Thoughts", Kristof Kintera