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Seeing Artwork During Vacation

Posted on October 15, 2012 by mlmcclung

We just got back from vacation; we spent 7 days in Barcelona with my partner’s parents and then took a few extra days for ourselves to drive up into France and around Provence.

Barcelona is a treat and it was great to get to share it with family. I used to travel there on business, but it was new for the rest of our group. We decided to rent an apartment right off La Rambla and enjoyed the convenience of being in the heart of the city. From there we easily walked along the marina in Port Vell, over to the beaches of Barceloneta, through the gothic quarter and along the famed Passeig de Gracia. One day we took a drive up to Figueres to see the Dalí museum and then we walked around Girona, enjoyed lunch in the old town and checked out the 11th century gothic cathedral.

After the folks left, we headed up into France and toured around a few days in Provence. The French border is only two hours and yet worlds away – we were struck by the changes in landscape as we skirted the Pyrenees and drove into the Camargue (an alluvial plain – a landscape that reminded us of the Chesapeake Bay), the food, the culture and the expense (seemed like the cost of everything immediately doubled). We stayed in Arles and then did excursions to Aix, Avignon and Montpellier.

All in all, it was a great trip for us – we did a lot but not too much…we paced ourselves and ultimately it was just right. We did wind up seeing a fair amount (okay, a lot) of art along the way – my top 10 this time around:

Fundacio Miró
Picasso Museum
Sagrada Familia
La Pedrera
Dalí Museum in Figueres
Palau de la Musica
Park Güell
Fundació Antoni Tàpies
Hervé Di Rosa at Carré Sainte Anne in Montpellier
Van Gogh café in Arles

La Pedrera

: Palau de la Musica

Salvador Dali sculpture

Sagrada Familia

Girona

: “l’Oeuf” (Place de la Comédie) in Montpellier

Hervé Di Rosa Yhayen (Procession)

Cafe Van Gogh

El Anatsui at the Denver Art Museum

Posted on September 21, 2012 by mlmcclung

“When I Last Wrote to You about Africa” is El Anatsui’s retrospective show, currently at the Denver Art Museum.

It’s funny…I find myself talking about favorite artists and I guess I have a lot of them because he is definitely one of my favorites.

I first began seeing his work about 10 years ago when I was travelling back and forth to London. Since then, I have admired his work in New York, Washington, DC, Paris, Hong Kong, San Francisco, Seattle and here in Denver. I have been enamored with the metal tapestries of bottle caps draped on walls, suspended from the ceiling and seemingly dropped onto the floors. I have tried to grasp the underlying meanings of using recycled found materials, and the obvious consumption and economic engines behind the overwhelming volume of bottle caps, largely from liquor bottles. I have looked at the patterns and made my assumptions about their connection to distant and unkown (to me) cultures. Mostly, I have enjoyed the high/low; hard/soft; heavy/weightless; effortless/meticulous nature of the work…they are truly stunning, shimmering works that leave me spellbound.

So with all that in mind, I thought I had some idea of who El is as an artist and what I could expect in seeing the retrospective, pulled together by Lisa Binder, Curator at the Museum for African Art, New York.

I was so wrong – I was in no way prepared for the breadth of experience and depth of his work. The show brings together the full range of the artist’s work, from wood trays carved with symbols familiar to the Akan people of Ghana; his Broken Pots series (and his unbroken ceramic pots); beautiful paintings rich in color, symbology and landscape; driftwood statues, and even the beloved metal wall-hangings that have taken the art world by storm in recent years. I was thankful to get to hear him talk about his experiences, his development as an artist and as a professor and his mostly just his work.

If you get the chance to see the show, in Denver through the end of the year, and then in Dallas this winter, do…definitely do. I have a feeling you might just discover one of your favorite artists too!

El Anatsui – Old Cloth Series at Denver Art Museum

Antony Gormley at Phillips Collection – Drawing Space

Posted on August 16, 2012 by mlmcclung

You may be familiar with Gormley’s sculpture; immidiately recognizing his body dissolving into space – blurring the distinction between materials and their surroundings.

This exhibit, of 70 works on paper and two recent sculptures continues that exploration of form in space. It is a beautiful show that fills only 2 salons in the museum, but creates a lingering sense of the engagement we, the viewers, have with our environment.

I am including some of my favorites from the show:

Aperture XIII, 2010 by Antony Gormley @ Phillips Collection

Bodies in Space, Black, 2007 Antony Gormley @ Phillips Collection

Three Museums in Cincinnati

Posted on July 20, 2012 by mlmcclung

Sunday I explored 3 museums in Cincinnati:

The Cincinnati Art Museum – is a wonderful collection of art, on par with state art museums around the country. It does a terrific job of bringing art to the city (it’s actually one of the oldest in the country) – like many art museums using a sort of checklist approach to showing work: a cycladic statue, check; an Egyptian sarcophogus, check; a Monet, check; a Picasso, check; a Rodin, a Calder, a Roman this, a Greek that – check, check, check & check.

It does what it sets out to do and so I find no fault – I do especially like that it places emphasis on the rich history of art from the region with it’s Cincinnati Wing. This addition, opened in 2003 and includes the “Cincinnati Painters” and also Rookwood pottery, along with glass, metalworks and furniture. There are beautiful examples of work by John H. Twachtman, Joseph H. Sharp, Frank Duveneck, and Henry Farny and many others – Cincinnati was one of the foremost art centers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

During this trip, I was happy to get to see a new statue installed this past Spring out front: Jim Dine’s Pinocchio (Emotional) – a 12 foot bronze greeting visitors upon the approach to the museum. His work was also featured prominently in an exhibit, In Celebration of Pinocchio with hometown artists including Jim Dine, Casey Rioden Millard, Mark Fox, Jay Bolotin and Will Hutchinson.

The Taft Museum of Art – This 1820’s house on a hill was donated to the city by the Tafts. Charles Taft and his wife Anna Sinton Taft were brother and sister-in-law to President WIlliam Howard Taft. Their collection of art, bequeathed to the city, includes Eurpoean and American master paintings, Chinese porcelains and European decorative arts – there are works by Rembrandt, Hals, Goya, Gainsborough, Turner, Ingres, Whistler and Sargent.

While I was there I enjoyed the collection and also 2 special exhibits. The first was Mathew Albritton’s photography in Ohio to the White House – a look at the brithplaces and childhood homes of seven presidents. The second, al look at the collection of French paintings on loan from the Wadsworth Atheneum in the exhibit Old Masters to Impressionists. Additionally, the city was celebrating it’s 80th anniversary of the museum with an exhibit of 80 reproductions from the collection placed throughout the Cincinnati Valley. http://www.taftmuseum.org/?page_id=2031

The Contemporary Arts Center – This striking 6-story jig-saw puzzle of a building designed by Zaha Hadid opened in 2003. It is a non-collecting museum dedicated to presenting contemporary ideas from around the world. – this time around I saw Jannis Varelas’ Sleep My Little Sheep Sleep, Francis Upritchard’s A Long Wait, and Spectacle: The Music Video.

: Art for All, Taft Museum

: Taft Museum

The Captive, by Henry F Farny 1885 at Cincinnati Art Museum

Boston July 2012

Posted on July 18, 2012 by mlmcclung

Earlier this month we took a week and a half to go to Boston and then up the coast of Maine. We got to visit dear friends in both areas and we got to unwind while checking out New England.

In Boston, we did our normal walkathon tour of the city, winding our way up the Harborwalk , heading into the North End, wrapping around to Beacon Hill, Back Bay over to the South End and back by Tufts and into Downtown. We went jogging through Boston Common and shopping over on Newbury Street. While we never miss Faneuil Hall or Mike’s Pastry Shop over on Hanover Street, this time we also made the effort to branch out and we were glad we did. We enjoyed our meals down on newly-trendy Tremont Street and in Chinatown and we tried out the food trucks on the Rose Kennedy Greenway.

On our fifth day we headed up the coast of Maine toward Portland and stayed the rest of the week with friends in Yarmouth. We slowed our pace way down – we hiked a little and checked out a nearby beach, one evening we took a water taxi to one of the islands for dinner. We took a drive up to Christmas Cove, and spent a little time shopping in Freeport. We drank wine and gorged ourselves on lobster … actually having lobster for breakfast, lunch and dinner! Most of the time we simply sat out on the veranda and enjoyed letting ourselves do nothing.

I couldn’t help myself – I tried, but I just couldn’t. We managed to skip the art galleries altogether (I looked longingly into a few windows), but still wound up visiting three art museums in Boston: The Museum of Fine Arts, The Isabella Gardner and the Institute of Contemporary Art. We were impressed with the new architecture at each of the museums and we enjoyed the exhibits – two of my favorites:

Josiah McElheny’s exhibit at the ICA, Some Pictures of the Infinite, takes a conceptual look at time and space continuums. McElheny is the kind of artist that makes me wish I was smarter – each display challenged me to try to grasp a concept of infinity that, by definition, is unattainable. His blown-glass works break down barriers between craft and art – the mirrored spirals of suspended orbs combine scientific theories of the cosmos with iconic mid-century modernism.

At the MFA, the highlight was Alex Katz Prints – the show includes 125 pieces on display that together emphasize Katz’s artistic clarity of voice over the past 60 years. He creates arresting images using as few elements and details as possible. He reduces form and color to produce images of graphic quality that are immediately recognizable and the subjects – his beloved Ada, his family & friends and the Maine landscape retell his story of a life well-lived.

Orange Hat by Alex Katz

Endlessly Repeating detail by Josiah McElheny

Top 10 in DC – May 2012

Posted on May 25, 2012 by mlmcclung

I passed through DC on my way home from vacation this week – it was an opportunity to connect with a couple clients, do some research on a series of prints I’d like to make (my own work) and also to touch base with a few artists. While I was there I went to 4 museums and about a dozen galleries. As always, I found a broad spectrum of things to interest me – ranging from the gallery of Whistlers and The Peacock Room at the Freer to Jay Musler’s incredible feathery glass art at Maurine Littleton’s Gallery to Mark Morgan’s quirky sculptures made of discarded detergent bottles at Arts @ 1830.

For me, the two most exciting shows this time around were the Miró exhibit over at the National Gallery and then a small exhibit of privately-owned Matisse & Picasso prints and drawings at Neptune Fine Art in Georgetown.

Now, if you haven’t seen the show over at Neptune, I am sorry to say it is coming down – Christine Neptune shares the space with her husband, Robert Brown. He will be up next, celebrating his own gallery’s 30-year success with works from his stable of artists’ – including the likes of Mel Bochner, David Nash, William Kentridge and Oleg Kudryashov.

Okay, so I am getting ahead of myself – the Matisse and Picassos…what a treat! The show consisted of about 3 dozen prints and drawings that belong to two different collectors – they are all in beautiful condition. My favorites were the obvious Nadia portrait and then two tiny little Picassos, rare little prints that were from editions of only 10 and 14, respectively.

I really wasn’t expecting to happen upon the gallery at all; I was headed next door to see another show when I noticed the gallery. The townhouse is like so many in Georgetown, a nest of intimate rooms that stand above a rear courtyard..perfect for showing off master prints and illustrating how potential buyers might actually live with revered works. Coincidentally, a dealer I had met with not an hour earlier had recommended this gallery to me so I figured, “why not?” I am so glad I checked it out and will keep it in mind as a “must see” in the future.

The Miró exhibit over at the National Gallery is blockbuster. The show consists of more than 150 works, covering a period of 6 decades. I personally love this type of show – it is constructed to lead the viewer through the life of the artist, showing the progression of works in the context of what was going on around the artist.

“The Ladder of Escape” highlights Miró’s loyalty to Catalonia throughout a lifetime of hardship: two world wars, the Spanish Civil War, and during Franco’s dictatorship. His story winds its way from farmlife of the 1920’s through periods of politically-charged explorations in surrealism ultimately to the self-referential symbols that together make the vocabulary for his fantastical, poetic later paintings.

I am enamored with the constellation of works – each one a puzzle, revealing itself slowly, taking the effort of the viewer’s attention to decipher.

My Top 10 this time around:

Joan Miró at National Gallery
Matisse & Picasso at Neptune Fine Art
Peacock Room at the Freer
Colby Caldwell at Hemphill
Foon Sham at Project4
Ai Weiwei’s Fragments and Hokusai: 36 Views of Mount Fuji at Sackler Gallery
Renate Aller at Adamson Gallery
Julia Fernandez-Pol at Morton Fine Art
Jackie Battenfield at Addison Ripley
K Silve at Susan Calloway Fine Art
Getting to go visit Gail Vollrath and Brian Petro in their studios.

Foon Sham – Spiral Vessel

Colby Caldwell – How to Survive Your Own Death

Jay Musler – Blue State Bowl at Maurine Littleton

Joan Miro – The Ladder of Escape

Picasso – Toute la Vie (1960)

Julia Fernandez-Pol

Nancy Lovendahl’s Sculpture

Posted on May 16, 2012 by mlmcclung

I guess I first took notice of Nancy’s work about a dozen years ago – I frequently ride my bike up and down the Cherry Creek and the Platte River trails and I saw her series of sculptures over near Coors Field, on the west side of the Flour Mill Lofts. “Elements” are actually four circular outcroppings of sandstone and granite that provide a contemplative resting place on the northern end of Riverfront Park; the indigenous stones rest in sympathetic poses on the river’s landscape contrasting the urban backdrop of the evolving city around them.

A few years later, I saw her work again at the Sandy Carson Gallery – she was exhibiting alongside another favorite artist of mine, Lorelei Schott. Nancy had egg sculptures made of stone, ceramics, wire & wood, a series that has gone on to be shown around the world.

Since then, I have seen her work around town, in publications and online.

Recently I ran into her over at Madeleine Dodge’s studio and she invited me to come down to Sedalia and check out her latest work, “The Gathering.”

WOW! What a treat!

It’s a monumental sculpture, carved out of 300,000 pounds of limestone…the sculpture is made up of 18 pieces and is 38′ long, 30′ wide and 8′ high. The sculpture is destined to be placed on private land near the Ohio Creek Valley, an interactive display of oversized stones strewn on the stream’s edge. Emerging from landscaped grounds, “The Gathering” will resemble bones exposed from the earth’s manicured surface.

Nancy’s new work (two years in the making) reveals a record of mythical bison – giants that spark the imagination. The ‘bones’ will provide seating and shade in the clearing near the creek. It will be a shocking discovery to the uninitiated that will beg the question “who was here before us?”

Check out her website, www.nancylovendahl.com to learn more about this project, her other works and her storied career as an artist.

Nancy Lovendahl The Gathering

Nancy Lovendahl – The Elements

Nancy Lovendahl

My new artwork at Space Gallery

Posted on April 24, 2012 by mlmcclung

I am showing new work at Space Gallery April 13 through May 19 and I would love to have you come check it out – it includes one of the largest pieces I have worked on to date. Please do swing by and check out the show at any time that works for you or contact me and I will walk you through it when it’s convenient.I am continuing the burn series with multiple layers of paper, burning imagery through each layer. I love to explore the interplay of light and shadow and the manipulation of the viewer’s eye to explore movement and depth.

Additionally, I have started 2 new series – the first is a group of photopolymer etchings I did this past year that allow me to explore the pyrographs while introducing color. The second series is a group of deconstructed pieces that I have then reassembled.

These new works are fun for me and I hope that you will like them.

Installation shot at Space Gallery; Marlene's sculpture in foreground.

detail image of pyrograph, courtesy of the artist

: Untitled, pyrograph mounted on panel 63″ square, image courtesy of the artist.

This piece is 20 layers of burns stacked together; I love the spaces where you can see all the way through it and also the shadows it casts. It can be hung vertically, but I chose to showcase it horizontally in the show.

Link

Geographic Wave, National Geographic magazines, binder clips, push pins, dimensions variable, 2009-2011. IMage: Courtesy of Hong Seon Jang and David B. Smith.

Springtime in Washington

Posted on April 20, 2012 by mlmcclung

It almost goes without saying, but my favorite show in DC right now is Doug Aitken’s projected video on the outside of the Hirshhorn Museum & Scultpure Garden. “SONG 1” uses powerful video projectors to cast the video around the entire museum and allows visitors to see the first-ever work of 360-degree convex-screen cinema. I got to see it on a warm starry night but have a feeling I would have like it in the rain or even in snow – it really is wonderful. If you are in Washington before May 13th, make sure you spend half an hour to check it out one evening.

The rest of the trip also had a lot of great art – here are my top 10:

Doug Aitken “SONG 1” at the Hirshhorn Museum & Scultpure Garden
“Circle of Animals Zodiac Heads” by Ai Weiwei at the Hirshhorn Museum & Scultpure Garden
“Snapshot: Painters and Photography, Bonnard to Vuillard” at the Phillips Collection
“Home is a Foreign Place”, a suite of 6 of the woodcuts by Zarina Hashmi at Burton Marinkovich
“Domestic Exchange” by Wilmer Wilson IV at Conner Contemporary
“Suprasensorial” at the Hirshhorn Museum & Scultpure Garden
In Vibrant Color: Vintage Celebrity Portraits from the Harry Warnecke Studio at the National Portrait Gallery
The Black List: Photographs by Timothy Greenfield-Sanders at the National Portrait Gallery
Paintings by Kathy Beynette at Gallery Plan B
“Pilgrimage” by Annie Leibovitz at Smithsonian American Art Museum