Color is the subject

When every brushstroke matters, creates dynamic, rhythm and flows, when the color impregnates the canvas, color becomes the subject. Anastasia Pelias latest show "Washed (to the sea and other waters) at the Heriard-Cimino Gallery in New Orleans brings us along the muddy, fertile waters of the Nile river to the shores of her ancestors place in Greece with Poseidon (delft blue, violet deep). She masters the technique of dripping with a subtle play of the brush in Louisiana (Chrome yellow, oriental blue) creating a moss-like world in blue, yellow and green.

Oshun, goddess of fresh water is healing with warm yellow to orange colors, Bayou Sauvage is a drip of violet and golden-green and Mississippi, a neon red, angry. The pigments on the canvas are so concentrated, the colors reflect the light, create depth and vibrate.

The works from Anastasia Pelias are a great study about her preferred subject, from the sea to other waters, in the tradition of the Color Field painting. Looking at Pelias works, a quote from Henri Matisse, a master of colors, came to my mind: "Cutting into colors reminds me of the sculptor's direct carvings".

photograph courtesy of the artist

"Louisiana" (chrome yellow, oriental blue), 72x72 inches, 2011

Bigger Is Better

Sophie Calle, Christian Boltanski, Claude Viallat, Bernard Venet... all the artists are French for this exhibition "Tour de France/Florida: Contemporary Artists from France in Florida's Private Collections" at the Frost Art Museum on the Florida International University campus in Miami. Two large rooms are filled with art, bought by collectors.
A little piece of Boltanski, a little piece of Sophie Calle... It made me reflect about the impact of the size of installations.

Last Summer, I visited the Galerie Rudolphinum in Prague. The exhibition "Undeniably me" featured, among other works, a room in the palace filled with 547 photographs, in black and white, covering the four walls of one room from floor to ceiling. The portraits of the dead were looking at me in the dark room and my eyes, when accustomed to the darkness, could only see the photographs. Physically immersed in Christian Boltanski's work, I got the full impact of his message.

At the FIAC, his installation lining a wall was moving with the anonymous portraits surrounded by small starry lights. But the lonely photograph with one light, on top of boxes at the Frost was lost in a corner. The single portrait makes the person become family, a crowd is overwhelming and evokes destiny, cultures, history.

I also recently visited the installation of Sophie Calle in New Orleans , part of Prospect.2 in one of the Pontalba buildings on Jackson Square. The visit involved the construction of the artist's story and avidly, I followed the path along the exhibition and became a participant. At the Frost, the photograph with accompanying text was just another framed art work.
Idem for Bernard Venet's works, a small sculpture becomes an object to decorate an office or a living-room.

If Christo, whose latest project is to wrap forty miles of the Arkansas river (scheduled in 2014), wraps the rosebush of a collector, it would tarnish his legacy.
The dimension of the work brings its significance.
Size does matter.




photographs by the author:
"Chases High School 8" Christian Boltanski, 1986-1987

"Monument", Christian Boltanski, 1996
http://issuu.com/frostart/docs/tourdefrance

Can art be intoxicating?

About halfway through the visit at the Art Basel Miami Beach fair this year, I felt like intoxicated, it was not by alcohol, but art...and maybe lack of sleep to catch the airplane: more than 200 galleries, 2000 artists. Art fairs are taking a toll on the visitor. The American version of the well-established Swiss Art Basel is celebrating its 10Th anniversary. This year, the galleries have ample space and an area is available for the visitors to rest and even lay on artificial grass for a snooze.

Why visit Art Basel Miami Beach? Rub elbows with the rich and famous? Feel the thrill of power and money? Take a glance at million dollar works? One can come close to a painting from Jean-Michel Basquiat worth 2.8 millions, but it is not one of his iconic graffiti. Farther, a piece from Ai Weiwei is a reminder of the artist and his absence.

Visitors are wandering , groups following guides, taking pictures... no milliardaire in sight. Gatherings happen in front of catchy galleries like L&M with its wallpaper of blue and yellow cows heads or Tony Shafrazi decorated with an installation of stuffed animals (seen above). Some, like The Pace Gallery, stay subdued with a conservative content (as opposed to the display at the recent FIAC in Paris).

This year Kusama's dots are peppered around the fair. Is this sudden fad related to her ongoing exhibition at the Centre Pompidou in Paris?

Chamberlains' small and big sculptures, Tom Wesselmann, Nikki de Saint-Phalle, Fernando Botero, risque works from Linda Benglis, few Joan Mitchell, a small de Kooning, very few Kandinski ... the list goes on. I relish the occasion to be emotionally overloaded by all these works displayed in close proximity. It is exhilarating.

The Beyeler Foundation has an entire booth dedicated to one work from Louise Bourgeois, the sculpture, about communication between individuals or lack of it, entices the visitor to interact with its mirrors and benches, but few take the leap into the sculpture.

I was surprised to see so few South American artists or galleries represent them as opposed to the recent Houston Fine Art Fair, very much in its infancy but inviting galleries from Cuba among others. It seems that the galleries were not taking any risk this year. Overall, the show was big by its size but deceiving by its content.
It feels like Art Basel Miami Beach is about making money, not about promoting artists. Could galleries do both?

photographs by the author:

installation Mike Kelly

"Mr. Kipper" Jean-Michel Basquiat, 1983

Ai Weiwei, 2011

gallery

Jonathan Messe

German Expressionists in Paris

Expressionism opposed to Impressionism? Painting visual appearances or the emotions they provoke? The question gets deeper with the exhibition at the Pinacotheque in Paris "Expresssionismus & Expressionismi, Berlin-Munich 1905-1920 Der Blaue Reiter vs Brucke" which opposes the two German Expressionist movements.


The paintings, one hundred and seventy in all, illustrate the difference between the two movements. Grouped by subjects (portraits, landscapes, travels, nudes...) with paintings from artists seldom shown like Gabriel Munter, Gontcharova, Von Jawlensky, Marc, Macke, Verefkin, Larionov, Pechstein and more.
Small dots next to the paintings, blue or red, identify which group the painter belonged too, Northerners from Dresden or Blue Reiders from Munich.

As I progress through this very didactic exhibition, I recognize the artists: Nolde with his heavy pasty, aggressive colors with the subject in the foreground taking over the canvas, Kirchner with his yellowish skin tones filling sharp black drawings, Werefkin with her poetic and dreamy paintings. Kandinsky is well represented with paintings assembled from far away places like "Arabes III" 1911, already abstract with the hazy figures melting in the background, on loan from the National Gallery of Armenia or "Improvisation 34" 1913, aquatic composition from the Musee des Beaux-Arts in Kazan, Tatarstan Republic (I had to look on a map to find Kazan). A productive artistic time in Germany is unfolding room after room in front of the visitor who can visualize the difference between the two movements: aggressive, primitive, fauvist, rebellious with Die Brucke, opposed to Der Blaue Reiter more intellectual, spiritual, with softer colors and lines, more thoughtful, appeased and also rebellious .
The exhibition has reached its goal and I am leaving with an understanding of these two German movements which lost too many of their members during WWI and then were banned by Hitler.

photographs were not allowed

public domain from top to bottom:

"Three Bathers" Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, 1913

"Sturmwind" Marianne Von Werefkin, 1915-17

"Schokko with Red Hat" Alexej von Jawlensky, 1909

"Der Traum" Franz Marc

A day at Prospect.2

The day started with a visit at the Longue Vue House and Gardens to look at Brandon Ballengee's installation titled Audubon's Absence. The eco-artist's statement did upset me "Responding to species loss, I cut the birds from historic John James Audubon prints". I had to verify, it is true! The artist did cut out the birds from original prints! The extinct species are now annihilated. The sound from Pasco is also supposed to bring silence instead of the calls from these extinct species. Due to some malfunction, it was not available the day of the visit.

To follow-up this disastrous start, I visited the Old US Mint. The display is sparse compared to Prospect.1, "The Night Club Portraits", 1973, black and white portraits from William Eggleston (1938), a photographer made famous by his color photographs occupy a whole room. A lengthy Gothic video about Mississippi's nightlife from the same artist can be viewed next also photographs from An-My Le shot in New Orleans and Vietnam.

Next (not included in Prospect.2), The Front featured Stephanie Patton's exhibition General Hospital. In her statement, the artist explains how she uses humor to overcome adversity, pain, disease and she succeeds in this endeavor with her soothing soft cushions, pillow-pills. Her one and a half hour video shows how to transform lemons into lemonade. It can be painful to watch and reminds us that life can be arduous. Due to its length, I was not able to watch the whole video, but I assume the lemonade was worth the effort.

At the CAC and the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, Prospect.2 and temporary exhibitions intermingle. NOLA Now Part I brings artists from New Orleans who are back (or never left) the city. I noticed the work from Dawn Dedeaux with her preserved but deformed portraits, time can deform memories. On the first floor, Alexis Rockman's large wall canvas depicts the species of the Southern swamps in a dark future. He is well -known for his vision of the world since his exhibition at the Smithsonian in Washington DC last year. Ogden was bathing in Surrealism with the works of two local artists Ersy and Josephine Sacabo, respectively sculptor and photographer.

The afternoon started with one of the highlights of Prospect.2, Sophie Calle 's installation at the Pontalba's house on Jackson Square, a story of her (fabricated) life told with self-deprecating humor. Her possessions are spread around the eighteen century house, left over from her presence, but she is absent. The narratives accompanying the installation could be drawn from cheap airport novels. The Duchess of Pontalba was a strong character who made head ways for females two centuries ago. The artist's vision fails to reach her dimension.

After dark, Dawn DeDeaux's installation brings mystery to the courtyard on Royal in the French Quarter. Goddess Fortuna and Her Dunces In An Effort To Make Sense Of It All brings to life the book from John Kennedy Toole, A Confederacy of Dunces. One can look at the shadows behind the windows on the second floor like a show with ghosts in the courtyard for this very New Orleanian story. It is like plunging in the decor for a movie.
I read the book previously and recognized the crumpled bed of Reilly, the hot dog cart, the novel's characters, but the show can be enjoyed just as a visual pleasure.

Fortuna, a goddess from New Orleans



photographs by the author:

"The Night Club Portraits" William Eggleston, 1973

"Test Tubes. Family Legacy", Dawn Dedeaux, 2011

"Battle Royale", Alexis Rockman, 2011

Here and There

A random walk brought me to the Academy of Fine Arts uptown the day of Art for Art's Sake in New Orleans, the traditional first Saturday in October. The works from Brent Barnidge were displayed in one room and made me think of Raymond Mason, another sculptor of crowds. Two weeks later at the Tuileries Garden in Paris, I thought about the exhibition I just had seen at the Academy.

photographs by the author:

"All On A Mardi Gras Day" Brent Barnidge

"La Foule" Raymond Mason, 1963-1965

"Off" FIAC

The side shows during the FIAC were a great surprise, I visited Slick and also Paris Elysees...there are many more exhibits in Paris during the four frenetic days.

Slick Art Fair, located between the Palais de Tokyo and the Museum of Modern Art of the City of Paris included 44 galleries this year, young galleries presenting emerging artists. Among the artists, I noticed Xavier Deshoulieres represented by the gallery Virgil de Voldere in NYC, oil on canvas, representing shadows of landscapes and Jean Denant with his "Mappemonde", a sculpted mural.

For the first time, I decided to visit Art Elysees, located along the Champs-Elysees in temporary tents. Sixty galleries and I found it more fun to visit than the FIAC. I discovered a serie of drawings from Jean Cocteau, works from Kupka, Gutfreund, Soulages, Cesar, Hans Hartung, Tom Wesselman, Picabia, Murakami and more, with the provenance clearly stated. The gallerists were available and ready to discuss the works with the visitors. It was a mix of real treasures mingled with tacky works like these presented by the Stephane Jacobs Gallery in Paris under the title "Arts d'Australie" inspired by aboriginal techniques.

I had a great time going through the tents.

Many red dots on the walls, I felt like buying...a small... also add... maybe...

Maybe next year!

photographs by the author:

oil on canvas, Xavier Deshoulieres, 2011

"Composition aux papillons", Picabia, 1924-26

"Sleeping 2000", Takashi Murakami

"Smoker Study", Tom Wesselman, 1977