This gallery contains 7 photos.
I am excited to share these two new series I began this the past year. They are hand-painted pyrographs on wood; the images on the longer strips are based on patterns I have created over the past 12 years and … Continue reading
I have long been mesmerized by the frenetic visual displays of Nam June Paik’s video installations, but taking a look at the Smithsonian’s current show, “Nam June Paik, Global Visionary” takes it all to another level. I love seeing retrospectives, and this viewing of his archives, is definitely that – and I do love it!
The thing that I have mentioned with other artists is that it is so helpful to see their work in the context of what was going on in the world at the time. What really sets Paik’s work apart is that he changed the context. He coined the term “Super (Electronic) Highway” 40 years ago and his work foresees the availability of information and unlimited access to media through electronics…at a time when people were still using typewriters, telegrams and postage stamps. His work clearly shows an eye to the editorial – synthesizing historical imagery with news media, cultural commentary and futuristic fantasy in a collage of (at the time) groundbreaking technology.
Check out the show – it is at the Smithsonian American Art Museum through August 11, 2013.
Merce-Digital, 1988
Electronic Superhighway Continental US, Alaska, Hawaii (1995)
Megatron/Matrix, 1995
TV Buddha (1974)
I like to go on home & garden tours to get inspiration and to see how my place measures up, and to see art (of course, since it’s what I do). There are the decorated homes – the ones where the artwork just matches each room so perfectly, the size and colors. Those certainly are beautiful homes. Some of the homes have an eclectic vibe which I guess I relate to because that is most often how I describe my own home. Then there are the homes where the owners have so much stuff: posters, paintings, photographs, odd farm-equipment sculptures, wind chimes, glass-eyed porcelain dolls in the guestroom, bric-a-brac.
Every once in a while, a home just makes so much sense – those are the ones where there is such obvious thought behind every decision. The artwork seems to take on a different purpose – each choice is made in the context of the others. Whether the homes have American folk art, impressionist paintings or black & white photography, those are the tours I really love.
The art collections that get me going are really focused; I love the idea that someone develops a set of ground rules and then uses those parameters to actually choose their art. If you want to take a more deliberate approach to getting artwork – try to at least consider it in terms of how it might work in your “collection”. Most of us wind up finding something we like here and something we like there and then just kind of throw it all together, wondering why it doesn’t necessarily work. The result is that trove of abandoned treasures under the beds, in the closets, basements, attics, or out in the garage.
Of course, you could hire a consultant like me – but even if you don’t, give your choices some thought. Whether you just discuss your ideas with someone or you chart it out or put it into a spreadsheet, try to establish some guidelines. If you can articulate a framework for the artwork you choose, you can begin to build a collection.
For more information on how I can help you acquire art and/or care for what you already have, see the about tab on my blog. I’d love to help.
I was reading an old article that Janet Tassel wrote in the Harvard Magazine about the role art museums play in civilization. She goes on a bit in different directions, but ultimately reflects the line of thinking that museums are repositories of collected objects that showcase the greatest achievements throughout the ages. As institutions, they should be be set apart and keep a view to the long arc of history, not the whims of popular society.
In the article, James Cuno (then of the Harvard Museum, now head of the Getty) and Philippe de Montebello (the Metropolitan) both concur that museums are by definition elitist. “That is what art is, and that is what every visitor to the museum is—by crossing the threshhold they are joining the elite.”
This got me to thinking – the other day I went to the Hirshhorn to see Ai Weiwei’s exhibit “According to What?” I was really looking forward to it and wanted to make sure I took my time and thought about the works and gave each and every installation and object the thoughtful consideration it was due. Given I might have been a little hungry and going to an exhibit with low blood sugar is not the best, but I found myself distracted and really annoyed by almost everyone around me.
I was put off that no one seemed to treat the show with the same deference that I was giving it. I know it was a holiday weekend and a lot of people were travelling but really…pulling suitcases through the museum? It seemed to me like the kids were running around – making shadow puppets on the walls of video projections; people were taking calls to arrange travel, to make dinner plans, and who know what kind of sordid engagements. One guy had his skateboard – and the cameras were click, click, clicking….ughhhh!!!
I got to the installation of beautifully crafted chests that are designed so that viewers can look through their various openings and see the phases of the moon. After waiting patiently for my turn to check it out, when I got to the opening my lovable and humorous partner was there smiling through the other side.
He got me to stop a moment, breathe and re-frame my experience. I could choose to enjoy myself or not and I could choose to be bothered by the crowds or not. I looked around and actually envied those other people – the kids running around without a care and the adults that didn’t need to give their full attention to the exhibit. How wonderful it is that children are exposed to art and given the opportunity to be themselves around it. All those visitors were living their lives in a setting where art was a part of it.
It occurs to me that a lot of us don’t get that luxury of experience – I didn’t grow up running around inside museums and galleries. For most of us, if we do wind up crossing that ‘threshhold’, we stand in awe of what we’ve been missing.
For those lucky elite, they’re not missing a thing.
Moon Chests – Ai Weiwei with Warren
“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
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:
Bodies in Space, Black, 2007 Antony Gormley @ Phillips Collection
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:
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
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 Gathering
Nancy Lovendahl – The Elements
Nancy Lovendahl
Installation shot at Space Gallery; Marlene's sculpture in foreground.
detail image of pyrograph, 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.
Last Saturday, I got to go with a dozen other members of the new Clyfford Still Museum on a tour of the Kent & Vicki Logan’s art collection…what a treat! It was a terrific day – the weather up in the mountains was perfect, the group fun and interesting and the art…amazing!!
To be sure, the Logans have a lot of great contemporary art, but for me the key to the success of their collection is really that they personally enjoy the works they acquire and that they are disciplined in their focus.
The Logans are kind and generous – their collection has been gifted to SFMOMA and the Denver Art Museum and they frequently invite the museums and art schools to access the works for exhibitions and study. In 2 decades they have amassed a thousand pieces of contemporary art that represent the best examples from artists working in the past 30-40 years that have influenced the worldwide movement of art. They have a decidely modern aesthetic, interest in Asian contemporary art and frequently a leaning for pop and shock.
It was exciting to see the works & especially to see the Logans living with the art in their home: Juan Munoz in the entrance, Warhol and Hirst in the living room, Richter in the dining room, Eliasson in the kitchen, Basquiat in the hallway, Marilyn Minter in the bedroom, Yue Minjun, Neo Rauch, Ed Ruscha, Kiki Smith and on and on.
As we passed through the rooms of their home, I began to wonder if there were artists whose works they thought maybe were missing or artwork that they’d like to acquire if only their parameters were different. As a group we came up with a few – either they didn ‘t quite work with their aesthetic, or the Logans didn’t feel they influenced their peers or they were outside the contemporary period of their focus.
All week long I have found myself reflecting on the collection and the parameters they set for themselves: They only buy art that they like; they buy art of the times (1960s-present day) and they buy art from artists that are addressing issues that confront us as a society and that are influencing the movement of art. They resist the temptation to get pieces just because someone else thinks they should & they eschew pieces that they like when they don’t work in the context of their collection.
myartlook 