Art Hag

Faith Ringgold To Discuss Her Art And Activism In Live Q&A, June 18

Faith Ringgold, American People Series #20: Die, 1967 (photographed at MoMA, March 2020)

Unrest on U.S. streets sparked by police violence in predominately Black neighborhoods in the 1960s inspired Faith Ringgold’s gripping 1967 painting American People Series #20: Die. Ten stylishly and identically dressed men and women—Black and white—are entangled in a chaotic blood-spattered clash as two small children cling to each other and watch in fear. The work is an "abstraction of what the fights were really all about, and they had a lot to do with race and class, and no one was left out," according to Ringgold (from the wall text accompanying the artwork).

"I was just trying to read the times, and to me everyone was falling down," Ringgold said of the work in a New York Times interview published last week. “And if it upsets people that’s because I want them to be upset.” Part of the Museum of Modern Art’s expansion and reinstallation last year, the large-scale, two-panel painting is prominently displayed in a gallery alongside works by Pablo Picasso, whose Guernica influenced Ringgold’s piece.

Born in Harlem in 1930, Ringgold received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in visual art from City College of New York and was an art teacher until the early 1970s when she quit to focus on her art full time. Working more than 50 years in painting, performance, soft sculptures, narrative quilts, children’s books, and more, Ringgold’s art addresses race and politics, civil rights and women’s rights. From 1968 to 1970 she organized protests at the Whitney Museum and MoMA demanding that the institutions exhibit more work by women artists and artists of color. In 1970 she was arrested for taking part in The People's Flag Show at the Judson Memorial Church in Greenwich Village and charged with desecrating the American flag. In 1971 Ringgold, Kay Brown, and Dindga McCannon cofounded Where We At, a Black women artists' collective. She has received dozens of awards and honors throughout her career.

Though still actively working on commissions today, the tireless 89-year-old artist/activist found herself challenged with a creative block earlier this year after losing her husband of nearly 60 years, Burdette, in February, and then having to go into lockdown due to COVID 19, according to the Times. The ongoing Black Lives Matter protests demanding justice for George Floyd and others killed by police violence have revived Ringgold’s creative vision. She’s back to work, according to the article, busy with her submission for The Flag Project which will showcase 192 flags created by contemporary artists including Carmen Herrera, Jenny Holzer, KAWS, Hank Willis Thomas, Shantell Martin, and Sarah Sze, as well as designs submitted by the public at Rockefeller Center in August.

Ringgold will discuss her work and American People Series #20: Die in a Live Q&A with MoMA curator Anne Umland on Thursday, June 18 at 8pm. Click here for more info.

Visit faithringgold.com to learn more about the artist and to see more of her powerful work that tells stories that are still relevant today.

Judd | Museum of Modern Art

Judd, the first U.S. retrospective of the minimalist master’s work in more than 30 years, officially opened last week at MoMA. The exhibition includes four galleries showcasing work spanning three decades of Donald Judd’s career, including some early paintings and sculptures and several examples of his signature "boxes" and "stacks."

Untitled 1991, enameled aluminum (foreground) and Untitled 1986 (back)

Born in Excelsior Springs, Missouri in 1928, Judd started off as an abstract painter and art critic in NYC, writing approximately 600 reviews from 1959-1965, according to MoMA. He began incorporating three-dimensional elements into his work, such as a baking pan embedded into a large black wooden panel, in the early 60s.

Untitled c. 1960, oil on canvas

Untitled 1962, cadmium red light oil on acrylic and sand on composition board with yellow Plexiglas

Untitled 1961, oil on composition board mounted on wood, with inset tinned steel baking pan

Untitled 1963, cadmium red light oil and black oil on wood with galvanized iron and aluminum

Untitled 1963, re-fabricated in 1975, cadmium red light oil on wood and purple lacquer on aluminum (front); Untitled 1963, cadmium red light oil on wood with violet Plexiglas (back, floor); Untitled 1963, cadmium red light oil on wood (back, wall)

With the help of his carpenter father, Judd soon transitioned to making wall reliefs and boxes, showing these works for the first time in 1963. Judd did not like to refer to his work as "minimal" or "sculpture," according to MoMA, "believing that his innovations set his work apart from historical precedent."

In the mid 60s, Judd began outsourcing his artwork to fabricators, Bernstein Brothers Sheet Metal Specialties, headquartered near his East 19th Street loft, according to the exhibit. He gave the metal shop detailed drawings and specifications to create pieces using material typically found in sinks and venting ducts. The company helped produce his "stacks" and his first is on view at MoMA. The work features seven identical galvanized iron boxes mounted vertically on the wall in a perfect column "separated by intervals that equal the height of the boxes."

In the late 60s, Judd began creating "progressions," wall works consisting of a bar connecting L-shaped pieces spaced in proportions inspired by the Fibonacci sequence. Floor versions of these "progressions" feature a series of large-scale steel frames "whose overall footprint" form "a perfect square."

Untitled 1964 (front); Untitled 1965, galvanized steel (right); To Susan Buckwalter 1965, blue lacquer on aluminum and galvanized iron (back wall), this piece was named for a collector in Kansas and is one of only two works that the artist titled.

Untitled 1970, purple lacquer on aluminum and cadmium red light enamel on cold-rolled steel and Untitled 1967, green lacquer on galvanized iron

Untitled 1968, stainless steel and amber Plexiglas (left); Untitled 1967, green lacquer on galvanized iron (back, right)

Untitled 1966, turquoise paint on aluminum; Untitled 1968, stainless steel and yellow Plexiglas (back)

Untitled 1968, stainless steel and yellow Plexiglas

In the 70s Judd began making "multi-unit" works that "responded to the specific parameters" of the spaces where they were displayed. He started to spend more time in Marfa, Texas where he acquired acres of land and property large enough to accommodate his artwork. The quiet, remote West Texas town has since been transformed into an art mecca, with Judd’s stamp apparent all around. With financial backing from the Dia Art Foundation, he established the Chinati Foundation there to permanently display his large-scale artwork as well as the work of his artist friends, including Dan Flavin, John Chamberlain, and many others. It is an absolute must-see for fans of Judd!

Untitled 1976-77, twenty-one stainless steel units (foreground); Untitled 1973, brass and blue Plexiglas (center); Untitled 1977, stainless steel with red Plexiglas (right); Untitled 1973, six plywood units (back)

Untitled 1973, brass and blue Plexiglas

Untitled 1973, brass and blue Plexiglas (foreground); Untitled 1969, four clear anodized aluminum units with blue Plexiglas (center); Untitled 1969, copper (back, left); Untitled 1976, galvanized iron (back, right)

Untitled 1970, clear and purple anodized aluminum (left) and Untitled 1969, copper (back, right)

Untitled 1969, four clear anodized aluminum units with blue Plexiglas; Untitled 1970, clear and purple anodized aluminum (back); Untitled 1969, copper (right)

In the 80s Judd began working with the Swiss manufacturer Lehni AG to create the multi-colored Lego-like aluminum works composed of "outward-facing open boxes." The centerpiece in the last gallery of the exhibit is a fun and enormous (59” x 295 ¼” x 65”) eight-color floor sculpture. Judd made six of these massive sculptures from 1984 to 1991, according to MoMA. He meticulously assembled the aluminum pieces "to achieve overall balance [in the colors] while avoiding patterns or the appearance of a system at play."

Untitled 1986, six aluminum units acrylic sheets

Judd installation view

Untitled 1986, Douglas fir plywood and orange Plexiglas

Untitled 1991, enameled aluminum

Judd died of cancer at the age of 65 in 1994. MoMA’s retrospective offers wonderful highlights from his extensive oeuvre. Seemingly simple and spare, Judd’s studies of form, space, color, and material are stunning and timeless, still influencing art and design to this day.

Other venues across the city will also host Judd exhibits to coincide with the MoMA retrospective, including the Judd Foundation (March 1 - July 11) at the artist's former Soho home, as well as Gagosian (March 12 - April 11) and David Zwirner (April 18 - June 26) galleries.

Judd
MoMA, 11 West 53rd Street, 6th Floor, NYC
Exhibition on view March 1 through July 11

 

Olivia Beens: The Storyteller | El Barrio's Artspace PS109

Tuesday (Feb. 4) is your last chance to check out The Storyteller at El Barrio’s Artspace PS109, a retrospective of NYC-based artist Olivia Beens’ 40-year career. 

Beens’ oeuvre includes performance, installation, and sculpture and addresses identity, spirituality, motherhood, and feminism. Born in 1948 in Holland, Beens moved with her mother to Portugal when she was four. The pair moved to Flushing, Queens when Beens was seven after her mother married an American.

The Storyteller: Olivia Beens Through The Decades, on view at El Barrio's Artspace PS 109

She received her BFA in sculpture from Pratt and earned an MFA from Hunter College where she began exploring performance and installation work. While still studying sculpture at Hunter, Beens created Images, Reflections, and Projections, an installation based on her year at a Catholic boarding school in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Exhibited in 1980, the work transformed a gallery into a chapel, with dozens of Polaroid self-portraits lining the walls depicting Beens as an artist, Goddess, mother, etc. A group of nuns’ habits—each stamped with “Warning: This habit contains an irritant”—floated ghostlike in the center of the room. An altar displayed a pair of scissors and braids of the artist’s hair to illustrate the “ritual of becoming a nun,” Beens explained at the gallery on Sunday, “they cut your hair.”

Spread over two floors at El Barrio’s Artspace, the exhibition features photos and video clips of Beens’ earlier installation and performance pieces on the lower level, including Fit and Flab Diaries (1985), a performance in which Beens and a fellow artist built cubicles in the basement of the 22 Wooster Gallery and lived there with their young children on weekends for a month. “After placing real personal ads in the East Village Eye, namely looking to meet a New World Man, Fit (played by Diane Spodarek) and Flab (played by Beens) discover their neighbor, played by Ian Prior, is just who they are looking for,” according to the wall text.

“There was a scripted performance that was about 20 minutes long that we did, I don’t know, every hour, and then the rest of it really was improvised,” Beens recalled. Visitors were invited to watch the performances and observe the two women, the two eight-year-old children, and the “New World Man” go about their day. Fit and Flab focused on “single mothers trying to survive,” Beens explained, “because that’s what we both were.”

Photos of Beens in The Satyr Silenus series (1984) in which she took the identity of the mythological satyr

In The Satyr Silenus, another performance series, Beens “inhabits the identity” of the Greek mythological satyr Silenus, the foster father of Dionysus, complete with animal furs, a phallus, and a tail made from her own hair. Silenus’ Summer Romp was performed in Cummington, Massachusetts where Beens was an artist-in-residence in the mid-1980s. “I involved the community. I cast body parts of community members,” Beens said. The participants traveled from a cemetery into the woods where they played drums then reconstructed the body of Dionysus using the body casts. “It involved everybody, which I wanted to do, and created ritual as performance,” Beens said of the work.

In 1980, Beens separated from her son’s father and she and the young boy moved to Canal Street (at Ludlow). “I moved into an apartment that had been uninhabited for over 40 years,” she said. “The windows were tinned up, the ceilings were falling down. There was rubble all over the place. I found objects that people left behind.”

Among the household items, linens, clothing, and newspapers she discovered was a wedding photo that she enlarged and placed behind window bars from the tenement. Another photo she unearthed features a young boy dressed in a suit and top hat. Beens framed the professionally shot portrait of the boy with curtains left behind by former tenants and painted stars and “symbols of America” on the background. “I would love to know who that little boy is,” Beens said. “He looks so prominent and confident.”

The Life of an Apartment (1983)

The Life of an Apartment (1983)

Beens’ two images from The Life of an Apartment series were included in an exhibit at ABC No Rio called Not for Sale: A Project Against Displacement. “I went to the Buildings Department and I got all of the documents on change and renovation and I wheat-pasted them” onto the walls of the gallery, Beens noted of her project that addresses the city’s ongoing gentrification. 

Beens lived in the 800-square-foot Canal Street apartment for 38 years before moving into an apartment at 215 East 99th Street two years ago. The building, where El Barrio’s Artspace is located, was transformed from PS109 into an affordable artist community in 2014 and offers nearly 90 affordable live/work units to artists. Beens noted that her son went to school in the building years ago. “It was hard for me to leave,” Beens says of her longtime residence downtown. “I was basically a Lower East Side artist and moved uptown.”

She loves her new home which is ten blocks away from the Covello Senior Center where she works from and also teaches ceramics. Beens began teaching art in NYC schools in 1982 and officially retired about nine years ago. “I am retired but I’m not retired,” said the active 72-year-old.

In the 1990s, while raising her son and working as an artist and an art teacher, Beens transitioned into “more sculptural work”—art that she “could leave and come back to.” The series, Object Spirit, features assemblages composed using found objects such as animal bones, wood, feathers, and shells. Simplifying her practice and working with nature drew Beens to these organic materials. “I have a really great love of nature. I mean I love the city…but I love being in the woods and by the sea because I feel in harmony with that.”

Who's Web? (1999)

Safiya's Song (1995), Beens made this piece for her late friend, the poet Safiya Henderson-Holmes 

Cave Dweller (1998) was inspired by the altars Beens saw in Chinatown shops and restaurants when she lived on Canal Street

The first work in the series, Spirit Ladder (1991), composed of bones, wood, pieces of glass, and wire, was made during a trip to Long Island. “I spent some summers out on Long Island and I would see these pieces of driftwood and bones along the beach and thought, ‘These have such a wonderful inherent quality to them.’ I wanted other people, and myself, to see and appreciate it. Then I thought I can assemble them to make really ritualistic pieces, so they come out of performance work in a way, and in a certain kind of spirituality that is self-identified. It’s not Catholic. It’s not Buddhist. It’s shamanistic, if anything.”

Spirit Ladder, 1991

Self-Composing Mandala, 2001

Her Icons series incorporate natural materials, hair, and bones, with copper “as a conductor of universal forces, situating the works in a unique devotional context,” according the wall text. Celebrating femininity, the works were inspired by Beens’ “interest in feminism and fertility figures. Women giving life, preserving civilization and passing it on to subsequent generations,” the artist says in the exhibition catalogue.

(L-R): Icons - A Hair's Tale (2008) and Alone Again (2010)

In the early 2000s, Beens took a trip to Prague to visit her mother’s sister who was suffering from Parkinson’s disease. The artist was overcome with emotion at the meeting. “When I saw my aunt, I just started crying,” she recalled. "It was an emotional response…. In Turkey there is this cistern and there are these columns that they call Column of Tears.” Beens associated her experience with the structures at the Basilica Cistern and began creating ceramic teardrops. Her series features column-like structures composed of dozens of dangling drops representing teardrops as well as rain, blood, and oil.

(L-R): Column of Tears - Magnolia (2010) and Lija's Tears (2013)

The shape of the teardrops that Beens constantly formed led the artist to create sculptures of small heads. “Those are little heads that I work on kind of endlessly,” she said. “They’re all made individually and I work with them starting with simple pinch pot method and I develop a relationship, something strikes me, it reminds me of somebody, or a certain expression develops,” she continued. “I love making the hair—it’s all fun—but the hair becomes this abstract kind of thing.”

Frozen in Time (2013-present), a selection of Beens' glazed ceramic heads

A closer look at Frozen in Time

More sculptural heads

Dakini's Dance (2017)

Olympiad (2017)

The heads feature meditative or knowing expressions, mischievous grins, and vivacious swirls of hair. A series of larger, more recent head sculptures feature multiple faces, adding to their mystery. Influenced by Asian art, Beens says the many faces that encircle the sculptures or poke out of a subject’s hair illustrate “how a being encompasses other beings and other lives that came before it and may go after it.”

These recent sculptures were created while Beens worked on the centerpiece of the exhibition, Baroque Passages (2012-2019) a group of ceramic busts and wall pieces which the artist created following the death of her mother. “She comes from Prague,” Beens said of her mom. “It’s a very Baroque city."

Baroque Passages (2012-2019) on the back wall. (Foreground L-R): Dakini's Dance (2017); Concerto in Bronze and Gold (2017); Bodhisattva for Yvonnne (2013)

The death mask in Baroque Passages

A closer look at Baroque Passages

Beens began the homage by creating a symbolic death mask. The artist says she “thought about churches and what’s on the ceiling and the way that the afterlife is depicted. These are fragmentary items that have to do with sky and angels,” she explained. Beens gets emotional when discussing the work, which is being shown in its entirety for the first time. The meditative, multifaceted work, featuring faces and religious icons on a warm mauve background, is moving tribute to her mother.

The Storyteller (2018)

The title of the exhibit was taken from The Storyteller, a sculpture Beens created in 2018. A torso, which “harkens back to either the Venus de Milo or the Victory of Samothrace,” rests above a skirt of netting, dotted with fragments of glass, that envelopes a group of small ceramic heads. “That came to me actually riding in a taxi cab, in the rain, seeing the reflections and what was going on inside and outside and around,” Beens explained. “She’s protecting or harboring other entities, other lives, or stories.”

Beens and her Shih-Poo Marwan stand in front of Baroque Passages

“I realized as we were putting the show together, that’s what I’ve been doing. I’ve been telling stories,” Beens noted. Incorporating influences from classical art, primitivism, and different religions and cultures, the artist’s diverse body of work tells fascinating stories of a New Yorker’s personal experiences as a woman, mother, activist, and artist.

The Storyteller| Olivia Beens Through the Decades
El Barrio’s Artspace PS109, 215 East 99th Street (between 2nd & 3rd Avenues), NYC
Exhibition on view January 10 through February 4

Hilma af Klint: Paintings for the Future | Guggenheim

You have about two weeks left to check out the Guggenheim's terrific exhibition Hilma af Klint: Paintings for the Future, the first major U.S. survey featuring the vibrant, abstract works of the little-known artist whose early 20th-century paintings feel notably contemporary.

The Ten Largest (No. 1, Childhood; No. 2, Childhood; No. 3, Youth; No. 4 Youth), 1907

The Ten Largest (No. 1, Childhood; No. 2, Childhood; No. 3, Youth; No. 4 Youth), 1907

The Ten Largest (No. 5, Adulthood; No. 6, Adulthood; No. 7. Adulthood; No. 8, Adulthood), 1907

The Ten Largest (No. 7, Adulthood; No. 8, Adulthood; No. 9, Old Age; No. 10 Old Age), 1907

Hilma af Klint began painting abstract images in 1906, “years before Vasily Kandinsky, Piet Mondrian, and others would take similar strides to rid their own artwork of representational content,” according to the Guggenheim's introductory wall text.

Af Klint was born October 26, 1862, in a town just north of Stockholm, the fourth of five children of a naval officer. She studied at Stockholm’s Royal Academy of Fine Arts from 1882-1887, graduating with honors. Early in her career, she worked as a landscape and portrait painter as well as an illustrator for science and design publications. Klint also served as a board member for the Association of Swedish Women Artists. According to the museum's notes, she left the Stockholm art scene in the mid-1910s to “concentrate entirely on pursuing her spiritual, and largely abstract, style."

Cornflower, 1890s; Cress, 1890s; Ketty (no date)

Early works: flowers and insects dated 1890s, portrait studies of woman dated 1918(?)

Af Klint became interested in religion and spiritualism (the practice of communicating with spirits—the dead or "transcendent spirits") following the death of her ten-year-old sister in 1880 and “became involved in a range of religious and occult teachings, including spiritualism, Theosophy, and Rosicrucianism.” 

In 1896, af Klint and four friends began holding séances, calling themselves De Fem (The Five). The group sought higher knowledge and began creating automatic drawings—channeling a guiding spirit to lead them in producing images and text. Their spiritual guides were named: Amaliel, Ananda, Clemens, Esther, Georg, and Gregor. In 1904, the spiritual guides introduced the concept of building a Temple to house a series of “spiritually derived paintings” created by De Fem. Af Klint was the only one in the group willing to take on "the great commission."

Af Klint worked on The Paintings for the Temple from 1906 until 1915, shifting her focus from figurative work to "spiritual subject matter.” The project included 193 paintings and works on paper which were intended to be exhibited in a “multilevel temple connected by a spiraling path"—similar to the layout of the Guggenheim. 

The first gallery of the Guggenheim exhibition displays af Klint's crowd-pleasing The Ten Largest series. Created between November and December 1907, the series depicts the human life cycle. The artist wanted these ten massive works exhibited together at the Temple. 

While af Klint's classical figurative works were often exhibited, her abstractions rarely were. According to the Guggenheim, Klint believed “the world was not yet ready to understand her work," and "stipulated that they not be shown for twenty years following her death.” However the abstract works she created for the Temple “remained all but unseen until 1986, eighty years after she began her monumental cycle."

After completing "the great commission," af Klint continued to produce non-representational works inspired by her religious beliefs as well as her interest in the natural sciences, including biology and the study of the atom. She continued to experiment with form, theme, and seriality, according to the Guggenheim. Af Klint died in 1944 at the age of 81 following an accident with a tram.

“Though she had mandated that her works not be shown for twenty years following her death, it would take more than four decades for her groundbreaking paintings to be exhibited again. It is only since then that af Klint’s work has begun to find its rightful audience. As her achievements have been increasingly recognized, they have transformed our understanding of modernism and deeply affected many contemporary artists,” the exhibition notes state.

Hilma af Klint: Paintings for the Future on view until Tuesday, April 23.

Group VI, Evolution, No. 16 and No. 15, 1908

Group IX, The Swan, No. 7 and No. 1, 1915

Group IX, The Swan, No. 13 and No. 12, 1915

Group IX, The Swan, No. 17 and No. 16, 1915

Group X, Altarpieces, No. 2, No. 3, No. 1, 1915

 

Giacometti | Guggenheim

You have another week to check out the Guggenheim Museum’s comprehensive survey of the work of Alberto Giacometti (1901-1966) before it closes on September 12.

Perhaps best known for his sculptures of extremely slender figures, the exhibition includes several of the artist’s drawings and moody paintings featuring ghostly figures etched onto darkened canvases.

Giacometti was born October 10, 1901 in the village of Borgonovo in Switzerland to a Post-Impressionist painter father, Giovanni, who introduced his sons to the arts. Giacometti’s brother, Diego, was also an artist and served as Giacometti’s assistant and frequent model. Upon moving to Paris in 1922, Giacometti took up a small (15’x16’) studio in Montparnasse where he produced most of his work (except for a period from 1941 to 1945 when the German army prohibited him from reentering France following a visit to Geneva) until his death in 1966.

Giacometti moved to Paris to study with sculptor Antoine Bourdelle, but the young artist decided to stop his classical training after discovering the work of Brancusi, Picasso, and other innovative artists, according to the Guggenheim’s notes. Giacometti’s early abstract work shows Cubist and Surrealist influences. The artist’s interest in the Bronze Age, African, Egyptian, and Oceanic art influenced how he later developed his forms and figures.

In the late 1940s, Giacometti began creating his distinctive, elongated and exaggerated figures that “resonated strongly with a public grappling with the extreme alienation and anxiety wrought by the devastation of World War II. Giacometti was unflinching in his portrayal of humanity at its most vulnerable,” according to the intro to the exhibit.

Following surgery for stomach cancer in 1963 and the death of his mother in 1964, Giacometti’s later work focused on mortality and loss. According to the Guggenheim’s notes, despite critical praise and financial success, during the final decade of his career, Giacometti was insecure about his abilities to recreate his subjects or “the reality he saw before him,” and worked constantly to battle his anxieties. He died in Switzerland on January 11, 1966 at the age of 64 of heart disease.

Learn more at Guggenheim.org. Exhibition on view through Wednesday, September 12. 

L-R: Monumental Head, bronze, 1960; Tall Woman IV, bronze, 1960-61; Walking Man I, bronze, 1960

Suspended Ball, plaster, painted metal, string, 1930-31

Woman with Her Throat Cut, bronze, 1932

Hands Holding the Void (Invisible Object), bronze, 1934

Man Pointing, bronze, 1947

Tall Figure II, plaster, 1949; Medium Figure III, plaster, 1948-49

The Chariot, bronze, 1950

The Nose, bronze, wire, rope, and steel, 1949

Walking Quickly under the Rain, bronze, Ca. 1948

Bust of a Man (Théodore Fraenkel), oil on canvas, 1954

Bust of a Man, bronze, 1956; Bust of a Man (Diego), bronze, 1959

Seated Man, oil on canvas, 1949

Tall Thin Head, bronze, 1954

Woman Leoni, plaster, 1947-58

Bust of Isaku Yanaihara (I), plaster, 1960

Bust of Isaku Yanaihara, oil on panel, 1959

Dog, bronze, 1951

David Hockney | The Metropolitan Museum of Art

In honor of his 80th year, the Met currently has on view a spectacular retrospective of the long (almost 60 years!), prolific, and ever-evolving career of David Hockney.

The museum is the only North American stop for this exhibition which showcases Hockney's early works, his iconic paintings including A Bigger Splash and Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy, more recent landscapes and iPad paintings, as well as several drawings and photo collages.

It's a vibrant, fascinating show that offers a glimpse into Hockney's personal life, glamorous Californian lifestyle, and unflinching creativity and productivity.

David Hockney is on view through February 25, 2018. Learn more at metmuseum.org.

Click to see my previous posts on Hockney's two 2009 exhibits at Pace Wildenstein—here for his colorful, large-scale Yorkshire landscapes and here for his terrific inkjet-printed computer portraits.

Tea Painting in an Illusionistic Style, 1961

The Cha-Cha That Was Danced in the Early Hours of 24th March, 1961

Domestic Scene, Los Angeles, 1963
California Art Collector, 1964

The Room, Tarzana, 1967

A Bigger Splash, 1967 (according to the exhibit notes, it took Hockney almost two weeks to paint the splash in the water alone. "I loved the idea of painting this thing that lasts for two seconds," the artist said.

My Parents, 1977

Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy, 1970-71 (the textile/fashion designer Celia Birtwell and her husband, fashion designer Ossie Clark)

American Collectors (Fred and Marcia Weisman), 1968
Christopher Isherwood and Don Bachardy, 1968 (Isherwood wrote The Berlin Stories, part of which was adapted for the stage and screen as Cabaret. Bachardy, a painter, was Isherwood's partner.)

Celia in a Black Dress with White Flowers, 1972
Andy, Paris, 1974

Self Portrait 30th Sept. 1983

Celia. Los Angeles. April 10th 1982 (a composite of Polaroid photos)
Don + Christopher, Los Angeles, 6th March 1982 (a composite of Polaroid photos)

Pacific Coast Highway and Santa Monica, 1990

9 Canvas Study of the Grand Canyon, 1998

A Closer Winter Tunnel, February-March, 2006
Red Pots in the Garden, 2000

A Bigger Interior with Blue Terrace, 2017

 

Jeff Koons | Whitney Museum

The Whitney Museum's final exhibition at its Madison Avenue location is a blockbuster—with extended museum hours to accommodate the hordes of visitors.  When Jeff Koons: A Retrospective, the museum-wide exhibition of the divisive artist's oeuvre closes on Sunday, October 19th, it will mark the end of an era for the Whitney which will move downtown to the Meatpacking District to new Renzo Piano designed digs (opening Spring 2015).

Organized chronologically, the retrospective showcases the 59-year-old artist's polarizing works throughout the years including vacuum cleaners encased in plexiglass, inflatable flowers and bunnies, basketballs floating in tanks of distilled water and sodium chloride, large-scale replicas of kitschy figurines, pornographic images of the artist with his former wife La Cicciolina (the Italian porn star and politician), plus his more recent stainless steel balloon animals, his decades-in-the-making, aluminum mountain of Play-Doh, and his Gazing Ball series.

Reminiscent of a Dollar Store, galleries stocked with colorful plastic and inflatable toys, balloons, sponges, lawn chairs, and assorted tacky tchotchkes, the Marcel Breuer building is worth a visit during its final days as the Whitney and before The Metropolitan Museum of Art moves its modern and contemporary collections into the vacated space.  Learn more about Jeff Koons: A Retrospective at whitney.org.  Until October 19th.

Three Ball Total Equilibrium Tank (Dr. J Silver Series), 1985

 Inflatable Flowers (Four Tall Purple with Plastic Figures), 1978 (partially refabricated 2014)

Inflatable Flower and Bunny (Tall White and Pink Bunny), 1979 (partially refabricated 2014)

Five Double-Sided Floor Mirrors with Inflatable Flowers (Short Blue, Short Orange, Short Pink, Short Purple, Short Yellow), 1978 (partially refabricated 2014) (front), and Sponges with Single Double-Sided Floor Mirror, 1978 (partially refabricated 2014) (back)

 Italian Woman, 1986

Michael Jackson and Bubbles, 1988

 Amore, 1988

 Pink Panther, 1988

Poodle, 1991

Ilona on Top (Rosa Background), 1990

Bourgeois Bust—Jeff and Ilona, 1991

Left to right: Kangaroo (Red), 1999, Split-Rocker (Orange/Red), 1999, Cow (Light Blue), 1999

Loopy, 1999

Shelter, 1996-1998

Left to right: Lips, 2000, Elephant, 2003

Hanging Heart (Violet/Gold), 1994-2006

Left to right: Balloon Dog (Yellow), 1994-2000, Moon (Light Pink), 1995-2000

Cat on a Clothesline (Aqua), 1994-2001

Seal Walrus (Chairs), 2003-2009

Dogpool (Panties), 2003

Gorilla, 2006-2011

Hulk (Organ), 2004-2014

Metallic Venus, 2010-2012

Play-Doh, 1994-2014

Gazing Ball (Farnese Hercules), 2013

Carrie Mae Weems | Guggenheim & Studio Museum Harlem

Currently on view at the Guggenheim is Carrie Mae Weems: Three Decades of Photography and Video, a mid-career retrospective of the artist's work featuring over 200 pieces that explore race, gender, class, identity, and social relations.

Born in Portland, Oregon in 1953, Weems, a 2013 MacArthur Foundation Fellow, is the first African-American woman artist to have a retrospective at the Guggenheim.  Some highlights of the exhibition include one of her first major photographic series, Family Pictures and Stories (1978 - 1984), which documents the artist's family in intimate, black and white portraits.  The powerful From Here I Saw What Happened And Cried (1995 - 1996) features enlarged, found historical images (mostly of African-born slaves) tinted in red and overlaid with new text to comment on some of the bigoted beliefs and attitudes directed toward African Americans in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Weems' epic Kitchen Table Series (1990) combines text and beautiful, stark photographs shot in the artist's kitchen and lit by a single pendant lamp.  Starring Weems herself, the series tells of her protagonist's - an everywoman's, experiences with "the blossoming and loss of love, the responsibilities of motherhood, and the desire to be an engaged member of her community."  The artist's words, displayed in several text panels, are perfectly illustrated through her evocative photographs.  

Since the Guggenheim does not allow any photography, you can view Weems' work at the artist's website carriemaeweems.net.  Learn more guggenheim.org.  Through May 14th.

Running concurrently with the Guggenheim retrospective is Weems' The Museum Series at the Studio Museum Harlem. A black and white photographic series Weems started in 2006, each image features the artist wearing a long black dress, standing before a major art or cultural institution with her back toward the camera/viewer.  Taken in front of museums all around the world, including the Guggenheim Bilbao, The Museum of Fine Arts Boston, the Tate Modern, The Louvre, the Pergamon Museum, the artist appears like a mysterious apparition facing up to the impenetrable institutions.  The series comments on the "collecting and exhibiting practices of these sites" as well as the artist's relationship with such institutions based on her race and gender.  Learn more at studiomuseum.org.  See my pics of The Museum Series below.  Through June 29th.

Guggenheim Bilbao, 2006 - present

Project Row Houses (Houston, Texas), 2006 - present

Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2006 - present

The Tate Modern, 2006 - present

British Museum, 2006 - present

Zwinger Palace, 2006 - present

The Louvre, 2006 - present

Balthus: Cats and Girls | Metropolitan Museum of Art

Balthus, born Balthasar Klossowski (1908 - 2001), had a penchant for painting young girls and cats.  The Met's exhibition, Balthus: Cats and Girls — Paintings and Provocations, showcases 34 of his beautifully moody paintings featuring the two subjects.  The "Provocations" part of the exhibit's title refers to the criticism the artist often received and continues to receive for the sexual undertones some of his work suggests.

The first gallery features a terrific series of charming, early (between 1936-39) portraits Balthus completed of Therese Blanchard, his young neighbor in Paris.  With short, pinned back hair and melancholy eyes, Therese poses with deadpan, indifferent expressions (a whatever kind of expression for today's kids).  In Therese Dreaming (1938), the young girl is presented sitting stiffly on a chair, eyes closed, hands resting atop her head, while her left leg is propped up onto the seat of the chair revealing white panties under her red skirt.  Below her, a cream-colored kitty happily laps milk from a bowl.  The most provocative of the Therese images displayed, the image is followed in the subsequent galleries by the more blatant Nude with Cat (1949) and The Golden Days (1944-46) featuring a young girl coquettishly lying on a chaise lounge admiring herself in a handheld mirror while a shirtless(?) man tends to a nearby fireplace.

The highlight of the exhibition is the gallery featuring 40 small ink drawings completed by Balthus in 1919 at the age of eleven.  Never-before exhibited, the adorable drawings tell the tale of a young Balthus finding and taking in a stray cat, whom he called Mitsou, when he was ten.  The series takes us through their first encounter, their time together playing, and the cat's staying by the young boy's side when he falls ill, to Mitsou's mysterious disappearance and the boy's desperate and failed attempts to find her.  The final image of the series shows the young Balthus crying inconsolably.  The impressive drawings were published in 1921 by the German poet Rainer Maria Rilke, who rumor has it, was Balthus' mother's lover.

Though the Met does provide a warning that viewers may find some of the exhibition's content disturbing, Balthus: Cats and Girls is worth seeing—especially for his wonderful portraits of Therese Blanchard and charming drawings of Mitsou.  Learn more at metmuseum.org and see a slideshow at blouinartinfo.com. Closes January 12th.

(Since Balthus: Cats and Girls is a special exhibition, I was not allowed to take pictures.)

Screen grab taken from blouinartinfo.com

Paola Pivi | Galerie Perrotin

Inaugurating its first New York location, Galerie Perrotin presents Paola Pivi's, Ok, You Are Better Than Me, So What?, the Italian artist's first comprehensive solo exhibition in the United States.

On display on the ground floor of the posh Madison Avenue gallery, eight life-size, rainbow-colored polar bears greet visitors and attract the attention of many passersby outside.  Made from Urethane foam, plastic, and feathers, the whimsical creatures pose playfully—a turquoise bear suspended from the ceiling appears to be flying; a fuschia bear lying on the floor with hind legs crossed and a front paw draped over its face resembles a weary diva.  Though covered in bright, Crayola-colored feathers instead of snowy fur, Pivi balances the extraordinary with normalcy by giving her bears life-like features and expressions. Pivi's fun, feathery bears bring a cheerful lightheartedness to typically staid gallery hopping. 

Be sure to also check out the lower level of Galerie Perrotin where Pivi's stainless steel Money machine (true blue, baby I love you) periodically spits out coins and dollar bills—a fitting nod to the building which formerly housed a bank.  Learn more at perrotin.com and at the artist's website paolapivi.com.  Through October 26th.

Here it comes the hunter, 2013

Don't change my name please, 2013

It's not fair, 2013

?, 2013

Mama no more diapers, please, 2013

Left to right: I never danced before, Who told you white men can jump?, Sometimes I have to stand for my safety, 2013

Rain Room | MoMA

I went to check out Rain Room at MoMA at the end of May, shortly after rAndom International's "immersive environment" opened.  Arriving just before 10:30am on a Saturday, at the tail-end of the early members' viewing hour (which we hoped would decrease our waiting time), we found snaking, Disney-like lines and were told the wait was 2 hours (the wait for non-members was significantly longer).  To fully experience the sensory installation, only 10 people are allowed into Rain Room at a time, hence the long lines and waits.  Just before 2:00, after actually waiting over 3.5 hours in an excruciatingly slow moving line and being rained on for real (the queques are outside on West 54th Street), we got to experience what the fuss is about.

Rain Room is a large, chilly, echo-y dark space illuminated only by a bright white light on the far end.  In the center of the room, a heavy downpour falls steadily from the ceiling.  I initially rushed into the center, stupidly walking at my usual New York pace, and had several big drops of water land on me. Serves me right for being impatient!  Slowing down and walking in straight directions, rather than zig-zagging and erratically as I normally do on the streets, I got the appropriate effect.  The rain continued falling all around me but stopped falling over me.  It's like magic, though it is really digital technology sensing where people are situated in the space and controlling the waterfall accordingly.  Rain Room is a "carefully choreographed downpour" that invites visitors to engage and interact with the installation while "creating an intimate atmosphere of contemplation."

Founded in 2005, rAndom International is a brilliant collective based in London that creates art that "explore[s] behaviour and interaction" — a perfect mix of science, technology, sociology, and art.

While I did not enjoy the long wait in line, Rain Room is truly a unique experience.  Try to get there early to minimize your wait or be very, very patient.  Due to the high demand and crowds, MoMA is now allowing visitors to only walk along the perimeter of the room, without going into the rain area, for a shorter wait—perfect for those with little time (or patience) and who are content just seeing the installation.  Learn more at Moma.org and random-international.com.  Through July 28th.

Rain Room is a part of Expo 1: New York, a series of special exhibits and events that examine ecological concerns, organized by MoMA PS1.

James Turrell | Guggenheim

Being a big fan of James Turrell, I couldn't wait for his exhibition (his first in a New York museum since 1980!) at the Guggenheim to open on June 21st.  I went uptown Saturday afternoon to check it out.

The centerpiece of the exhibition, simply titled James Turrell, is Aten Reign (2013), a site-specific work that occupies and transforms the entire rotunda of the famed Frank Lloyd Wright building.  In one of the most substantial transformations of the museum's architecture, the artist has closed off the balconies of the museum with white fabric, and draped five gauzy sheets across the top levels leading up to the museum's skylight, illuminating the work with both natural light and hidden LED lights.  The LEDs gradually change colors, transforming the piece from subtle hues of white, grey, and blue to intense shades of orange, pink, red, and violet, in an approximately 60 minute loop.  As daylight shifts outside, so does the artwork, affected by the change in natural light coming from the skylight. 

Visitors need to scope out and rush for available spots on specially-designed benches (with head-rests) along the walls of the ground floor.  Once situated, they can sit back, look up, and take in the experience of "seeing yourself seeing," as Turrell calls it.  Depending on the light/color, the mesmerizing piece alternates from seeming flat, to concave, to puffy—at times resembling a spaceship and at others looking like an abyss.  I initially shuffled around, a la musical chairs, trying to find the optimal vantage-point.  Once I found a spot I was happy with, I stayed put for about 90 minutes, gazing at the dream-like space up above.

Turrell, born in California in 1943, studied perceptual psychology at Pomona College.  He has been working with light and space since the 1960s, and four of his earlier works are also on view in the Guggenheim's upper galleries.  Ronin (1968), a carved out corner illuminated in white, exudes an otherworldly feel.  Afrum I (White) (1967), also situated in a corner, consists of a white cube that appears (at certain angels) to be hanging or floating, but is actually planes of light projected onto the walls.  Two other earlier works, Prado (White) (1967), a white rectangle projected onto a wall, and Iltar (1976) a black rectangle cut into a wall and illuminated by simple light bulbs on either side, were difficult to read.  There was an approximately 15-minute queue to enter Iltar on the top floor.  Many viewers simply saw a black rectangle on the wall and left confused.

James Turrell at the Guggenheim is being shown simultaneously with two other Turrell exhibits—one at LACMA and the other at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.  These exhibits, along with the magnificent Aten Reign (as well as a recent commission for Louis Vuitton in Las Vegas), will have to hold us over until Turrell completes his magnum opus, Roden Crater, an extinct volcano in Arizona that he's been transforming into a naked-eye observatory and series of skyscapes since 1979.  Learn more at Guggenheim.org and archpaper.com.  Through September 25th.

Aten Reign (2013)

Aten Reign (2013)

Aten Reign (2013)

Aten Reign (2013)

Aten Reign (2013)

Ronin, 1968

Afrum 1 (White), 1967

Paul McCarthy | Hauser & Wirth

Los Angeles-based artist Paul McCarthy has been exploring and reinterpreting the 19th century German folk tale, Schneewittchen, and the 1937 animated Disney adaptation, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, in a variety of mediums.  In 2009, Hauser & Wirth presented a series of McCarthy's drawings based on the "dark psychological and social undercurrents of the original 19th century tale" (from show's press release) and the sanitized, Disney-fied retelling of the 20th century version.  The gallery currently has on view The Dwarves, The Forests, a series of bronze sculptures of disfigured, grotesque dwarves that expands on the artist's examination of the children's stories.  

Along with the dark, malformed dwarves with phalluses protuding from faces that appear to be melting or falling apart, McCarthy created a massive carved wooden sculpture of an orgasmic Snow White and grinning Dopey (referencing Gian Lorenzo Bernini's sculpture Transverberation of Saint Teresa) and two maquettes of mystical forest landscapes that serve as models for sets for performances and films the artist is planning for the future.

While inspired by the German folk tale and the Disney story, McCarthy adds a personal touch to the works by combining his "memories and impressions of the deep forests and magical clearings on his own property above the Mojave Desert."  McCarthy's dark, intense, nightmarish take on the Snow White stories is way beyond Fractured Fairy Tales.  It has positively evolved from his 2009 show of drawings which I posted about here.  I'm looking forward to see where he takes Snow White and the dwarves next.  Learn more at Hauserwirth.com.  Closes December 17th.

White Snow Cake, 2011

White Snow Cake (detail), 2011

White Snow Cake (detail), 2011

White Snow Cake (detail), 2011

White Snow Cake (detail), 2011

White Snow Dwarf 4, 2011

White Snow Dwarf 7, 2010-2011

White Snow and Dopey, Wood, 2011

White Snow and Dopey, Wood (side view), 2011

White Snow Dwarf Head 5, 2011

Left to right: White Snow Dwarf Head 3, 2011 and White Snow Dwarf 6, 2010-2011

Left to right: White Snow Dwarf 6, 2010-2011and White Snow Dwarf Head 1, 2011

White Snow Dwarf Log, Male (detail), 2010-2011

White Snow Loving Forest, Female (detail), 2011

Glenn Ligon | Whitney Museum

This past weekend I headed up to the Whitney Museum to catch Glenn Ligon: America before it closed on Sunday.  For over 25 years the New York-born and based Ligon has explored American history, literature, society, homosexuality, and being African-American in his artwork.  The Whitney's compelling exhibit is the first mid-career retrospective of the 51-year-old artist's oeuvre.  Featuring about 100 works, several of the galleries are devoted to Ligon's paintings that incorporate text culled from writers like James Baldwin (from his 1953 essay Stranger in the Village about the author's experience visiting a small Swiss town that had never seen a black person before), Jean Genet, Zora Neale Hurston (from her 1928 essay How It Feels to Be Colored Me), and quotes from comedian Richard Pryor and lyrics by rapper Ice Cube.  The selected texts primarily deal with race and being black and the phrases, written out with stencils in black oil stick, are repeated over and over trickling down a white or black canvas (or in some cases, a door) until the letters get smudgy and illegible and seem to dissolve into a deep pool of blackness. The works featuring lines from Richard Pryor jokes were created in dizzyingly bright colors, giving the words a vibrating effect, complementing Pryor's "colorful language" (from the exhibition's notes).

To Disembark is a series of four large, square art crates, each concealing a quietly playing soundtrack within its wooden walls.  From one box, Billie Holiday's Strange Fruit is barely audible.  From another a Bob Marley song plays, while another plays KRS-One's Sound of Da Police.  The fourth box contains audio of Ligon reading the story of Henry "Box" Brown, a slave who mailed himself to freedom in 1849 in a 3 x 2 foot box.  Hanging from the walls surrounding the four wooden crates are prints displaying descriptions of Ligon written by his friends on "Missing" posters that were once used to search for runaway slaves.

The central gallery features Notes on the Margin of the Black Book (1991-93), an installation Ligon created in response to Robert Mapplethorpe's controversial Black Book published in 1986.  Mapplethorpe's Black Book featured 91 black-and-white portraits of black men, mostly in the nude.  The book was unique at the time of its release because men of color had not been artistically represented in this way before (which is why Mapplethorpe said he produced it).  When the book was first released, Ligon could not decide whether he found it racist or exploitative, so he showed the images to various artists, friends, critics, politicians, and bartenders and patrons at gay bars and asked for their opinions.  Along with exhibiting all 91 pages from Mapplethorpe's Black Book, Notes on the Margin of the Black Book displays 78 of the varied responses (ranging from homophobic or shocked to thoughtful or humorous) Ligon received from his survey.

A more G-rated gallery exhibits large-scale silkscreen reproductions from a project Ligon worked on with a group of school children.  The artist brought the students coloring books geared toward children of color and asked them to color in the images.  The racially diverse group of kids made Isaac Hayes a blonde and gave the image of Malcolm X a sort of clownish drag queen make-over.  The exhibition closes with three neon sculptures spelling out "America" - each with an idiosyncrasy like a couple of reversed letters, non-stop frantic blinking, or being covered in black paint.  While each of Ligon's neon pieces may look a little different from one another, they all still represent America.  Learn more at Whitney.org.  Closed June 5th.

 
Mirror, 2002, screen grab from Whitney.org

Malcolm X (Version 1) #1, 2000, screen grab from Whitney.org

 

Public Art

Now that we've entirely bypassed spring and plunged head-on into summer weather, it's time to venture outdoors and enjoy some public art.  Along with Ai Weiwei's Zodiac Heads at Grand Army Plaza, here are a few other suggestions for viewing art whilst simultaneously catching some sun.

If you haven't already, you should head over to the Seagram Building at Park Avenue between 52nd and 53rd Streets to check out Swiss-born, Brooklyn-based Urs Fischer's 20-ton, 23-foot-tall, bright yellow, teddybear impaled by a desk lamp.  Untitled (Lamp/Bear) sold at Christie's May 11th auction for over $6 million (a few mill shy of the expected $10 million). After getting six city permits and reinforcing the ground in front of the Seagram Building, about 30 handlers were employed to assemble the piece back in April.  The lightbulb in the giant lamp (whose stand juts out of the poor, slouchy bear's back) lights up in the evening.  Fischer created three of these works — siblings of the bear on display on Park Avenue include a blue one purchased for an undisclosed amount by a hedge-fund manager and another yellow version displayed on the Montauk, New York lawn of its entrepreneur owner.  Learn more at Christies.com and wsj.com.  Through September 30th.

After checking out the excellent McQueen exhibit along with eveyone else and his mom at the Met, be sure to head up to the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Roof Garden to see sculptures by British artist Anthony Caro.  A key figure in modernist sculpture, the five, large-scale, steel works on exhibit span Caro's sixty year career.  The lively, colorful pieces explore "principal aspects" of the artist's career including "engagement with form in space, dialogue between sculpture and architecture, and creation of new, abstract analogies for the human figure and landscape," (from the museum's website).  Learn more at metmuseum.org.  Through October 30th.

And if you happen to be in or around Union Square, you should make a special stop at the new pedestrian plaza at Broadway and 17th Street where Rob Pruitt's The Andy Monument christens the walkway.  Inspired by Andy Warhol's art, life, drive and spirit, Pruitt created the life-size silvery statue as a tribute to the Pop artist.  Posing with a Polaroid camera around his neck and clutching a Bloomingdale's shopping bag, Pruitt's figure of Warhol is exhibited a spitting distance away from the second incarnation of Warhol's famous and infamous Factory.  The shiny, blinding beacon is a flashy and fitting salute to the legendary and influential New York icon.  Learn more at unionsquarenyc.org.  Through October 2nd.

Urs Fischer, Untitled (Lamp/Bear)

Urs Fischer, Untitled (Lamp/Bear)

Anthony Caro, After Summer, 1968

Anthony Caro, Midday, 1960

Anthony Caro, End Up, 2010

Rob Pruitt, The Andy Monument

Alexander McQueen | Metropolitan Museum of Art

"I want to empower women.  I want people to be afraid of the women I dress."—Alexander McQueen

Lee Alexander McQueen was born in 1969 in London.  The youngest of six children, McQueen grew up on a council estate with a taxi driver father and school teacher mother.  Leaving school at 16, the young McQueen apprenticed for two Savile Row tailors where he learned the meticulous art of cutting and constructing menswear.  After stints working for theater costumers and designers Koji Tatsuno and Romeo Gigli, McQueen attended the legendary Central Saint Martin's where he earned his Masters degree in Fashion Design.  In 1992, his entire graduate collection was bought by the fabulous, iconic fashion editor Isabella Blow, who is credited with discovering and mentoring McQueen and launching his career. 

In October 1996, McQueen was selected by the president of LVMH, Bernard Arnault, to be John Galliano's replacement as Chief Designer at Givenchy Haute Couture.  While at Givenchy McQueen learned to successfully combine his razor-sharp, bespoke tailoring skills with the fine craftsmanship of haute couture.  During McQueen's five years at Givenchy, the designer delivered beautiful, dramatic collections with a distinctive dark and edgy side.  Developing his reputation for dramatic and lavish runway shows while at Givenchy, McQueen featured robots spray painting a white dress worn by model Shalom Harlow in one show, and double-amputee model Aimee Mullins (who is also featured in Matthew Barney's Cremaster 3) walking down the catwalk on specially carved wooden prosthetics in another.  After leaving Givenchy due to creative differences, McQueen focused on his own line (which 51% of was acquired by LVMH rival the Gucci Group) and continued his ascent to be one of the industry's most daring, renowned, and respected designers.  It's no surprise then that the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute is honoring Alexander McQueen with Savage Beauty, a fantastic retrospective of the late designer's illustrious and sadly truncated career.

Featuring approximately 100 looks and 70 accessories spanning McQueen's nineteen-year career, the pieces were culled mainly from the Alexander McQueen Archive and also features a handful of his ensembles from the Givenchy Archive.  A number of pieces are loaned from collectors including stylist Katy England (whose wedding dress McQueen designed) and Daphne Guinness, the heiress and couture collector who famously purchased Isabella Blow's covetable fashion collection after Blow took her own life in 2007.  Signature McQueen designs on display include his infamous "bumster" trousers (which changed how high -or low- we wear pants), kimono-inspired jackets, and his three-point "origami" frock coat. 

The exhibition is organized into six sections:  The Romantic Mind; Romantic Gothic and Cabinet of Curiosities (highlighting the designer's references to the nineteenth century Victorian Gothic); Romantic Nationalism (displaying McQueen's Scottish pride); Romantic Exoticism (featuring works inspired by the cultures of Japan, China, Africa, India, and Turkey); Romantic Primitivism (displaying McQueen's contradictory take on primitivism "contrasting 'modern' and 'primitive,' 'civilized' and 'uncivilized'"); and Romantic Naturalism (exhibiting nature's strong and consistent influence on the designer).  The talented creative team who produced McQueen's elaborate runway shows were enlisted for the exhibition's design.  The Cabinet of Curiosities they created features shelves and nooks showcasing the various accessories, shoes, and headpieces McQueen created throughout the years alongside notable collaborators, including two of my favorites Shaun Leane (who creates gorgeous and disturbing metal pieces, ie: his rib cage corset) and well-known milliner Philip Treacy (whose hats Isabella Blow regularly wore and who recently gained notoriety for designing Princess Beatrice's "pretzel" hat for Kate and Wills' royal wedding).  Unfortunately, the pieces in the upper cases were only visible from afar—and in the over-crowded, grid-locked room, it was pretty impossible to find good vantage points.

The comprehensive exhibition features pieces from McQueen's graduate collection titled Jack the Ripper Stalks His Victims up through his final collection for A/W 2010 that was shown posthumously to rave reviews.  McQueen's design assistant of fourteen years, Sarah Burton, who was appointed Creative Director after the designer's suicide, has shown two well-received collections for the label and has made quite a name for herself in sartorial history by designing Kate Middleton's princess-appropriate wedding gown and her sister's much-loved and unforgiving bridesmaid dress.  I wondered how McQueen would have felt about his namesake brand being associated with the pomp of the royal wedding since legend has it while working on Savile Row, the designer with the bad-boy reputation embroidered "I am a cunt" into the lining of a jacket for Prince Charles.

Savage Beauty exhibits fashion at its finest—the oeuvre of a unique designer whose clothing was artistic, innovative, and evocative.  This is by far the best Costume Institute exhibit I've seen.  Though it's a shame he isn't here to receive the honor, I'm relieved that McQueen is represented in a stylish, tasteful, and elegant manner.  I cried when I read the news of McQueen's suicide on February 11, 2010 (a mere nine days after his mother succumbed to cancer).  Growing up, I followed his career and was a huge fan of his beautifully dark and daring work and rebellious "don't give a fuck" attitude.  After fashion weeks, his would always be the first shows I'd look for in magazines, and later online, to get a glimpse of his stunning clothing as well as the excitment of his shows—shows inspired by the film They Shoot Horses, Don't They?, shipwrecks, asylums, Scottish history, and much more.  His human chess game show for Spring 2005 was inspired by a scene from Harry Potter and his Fall 2006 show closed with a ghostly, life-size hologram of Kate Moss floating in gossamer fabric (see below - a small version of this is on view at the exhibit).  Insightful, articulate quotes by the designer are featured throughout the exhibit, and it's disheartening to read the many references he made to death.  One quote reads: "I oscillate between life and death, happiness and sadness, good and evil."  Sadly, now that he's gone, it seems that he wasn't just referring to his work.  Another quote near the beginning of the exhibit states: "I want to be the purveyor of a certain silhouette or a way of cutting, so that when I'm dead and gone people will know that the twenty-first century was started by Alexander McQueen."  Long live McQueen!  Learn more at metmuseum.org and at Alexandermcqueen.com.  Through July 31st.

(Sorry, photography was not allowed inside the exhibit.)

Burning Down the House, David LaChapelle, 1996, featuring Alexander McQueen and Isabella Blow

 

SHOWstudio/Nick Knight's tribute to McQueen, 2010

 

Pepper's Ghost, A/W 2006, hologram by Baillie Walsh featuring Kate Moss

Ai Weiwei | Grand Army Plaza

Since Ai Weiwei's whereabouts are still unknown after being detained by Chinese officials in early April, the world-renowned artist and human rights activist was not able to attend the unveiling of his first major public sculpture installation, Circle of Animals/Zodiac Heads, last Wednesday at Grand Army Plaza (at 58th Street and 5th Avenue - across from Central Park, the Plaza Hotel, and Bergdorf Goodman).  New York City is the first stop of the exhibition's official world tour which will be traveling across the U.S. as well as Europe and Asia.

The 800-pound, bronze sculptures represent the twelve animal signs of the Chinese zodiac (rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, goat, monkey, rooster, dog, pig).  The work was inspired by the 18th century water clock-fountain built in the gardens of Yuanming Yuan by two European Jesuits for Emperor Qianlong of the Qing dynasty.  The Yuanming Yuan gardens were raided in 1860 by British and French troops and the original animal head sculptures were looted.  While only seven of the original twelve heads have ever been recovered, Ai recreated the full dozen in charming, large-scale renditions that question issues of  "looting and repatriation" and explore "fake" or copied works of art (from zodiacheads.com).

The exhibition is organized by AW Asia, and while Ai could not be at the opening last week, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg was joined by a number of artists, curators, and members of the arts community to honor the artist and read aloud some of his eloquent and rousing quotes.  Mayor Bloomberg noted, "Artists risk everything to create, but artists like Ai Weiwei, who come from places that do not value and protect free speech, risk even more than that."

New York City seems an appropriate choice to kick off Wei's Circle of Animals/Zodiac Heads tour as the artist attended Parsons and lived here for more than ten years.  The artist states that the zodiac sculptures are works that can be enjoyed and understood by all - including children, people not in the art world, and casual passers-by.  The stunning, playful sculptures were certainly getting lots of attention when I visited.  Now if only those imprisoning Ai could understand and appreciate the artist, his artwork, and his politics as well.  Learn more at zodiacheads.com and artdaily.org.  Through July 15th.

Rat

Ox, Tiger

Rabbit, Dragon, Snake

Snake, Horse

Goat, Monkey

Rooster

Dog

Boar

Rachel Feinstein | Lever House

Interpreting Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale The Snow Queen, Rachel Feinstein has transformed the lobby of The Lever House into a whimsical fantasy world.  Inspired by the children's story, the artist explores themes of beauty, fantasy, and ruin via massive sculptures and installations featuring toy soliders, roses, children, ice, and a gilded coach. 

The Snow Queen's Room is a vast, cold, white space that can be viewed outside through the exterior windows or in the lobby through intricately decorative alcoves containing ornate, dynamic sculptures of characters from the story.  Adjacent to the installation is The Soliders, a colorful parade of giant toy soliders, hand-cut and hinged together like an enormous folding screen.  The Mirror Room is a two-sided room featuring floor to ceiling mirrors embellished with painted images of "architectural ruins in a bucolic, sweeping landscape" that "suggest[s] nature overpowering the presence of man," (from the exhibit's press release).  Outside in a wintry barren planter rests Golden Carriage, a smashed, golden, 19th-century royal Austrian coach "constructed of joined and curved pieces of wood that have been cast in metal and brightly gilded."  Sitting in a green, leafy planter inside the lobby of the building is Flower Girl, an odd sculpture that looks a lot like a child's Play-Doh creation.  Feinstein's quirky works transport the busy worker-bees shuffling through The Lever House's lobby to get to their offices temporarily to a magical fairy tale world.  Learn more at leverhouseartcollection.com and check out this recent NYTs article to get a glimpse into Feinstein's fabulous life with husband, painter John Currin, and their three young children.  The Snow Queen is on view through April 22nd.

The Soliders

The Snow Queen's Room

The Snow Queen's Room close-up

The Mirror Room

Golden Carriage

Flower Girl

Martin Kippenberger | Skarstedt Gallery

Eggman II, currently on view at the Skarstedt Gallery, reintroduces works by Martin Kippenberger that were originally shown in Der Eiermann und seine Ausleger (The Eggman and his Outriggers), the final exhibition of the aritst's work before his untimely death in 1997 at the age of 44.  Consisting of nine paintings, a series of drawings on hotel stationery, and a sculpture, the works focus on the egg, a theme Kippenberger often revisited throughout his career.

"Always recycling imagery, the egg is the banal comedic device in Kippenberger's images," (from the show's press release).  By playfully incorporating an egg into these works, Kippenberger made "indirect references to rebirth, reproduction, and the ideal of the circle."  Whether showing a woman posing proudly with a giant golden egg, an embryonic dinosaur inside an egg, or the artist himself morphing into a bloated, grotesque Eggman, Kippenberger infused humor into his studies of the mundane egg form.  As the artist stated:  "In painting you must look what fallen fruit is left that you can paint.  The egg has missed out there, Warhol already had the banana.  You take a form for yourself it's always about angular, square, this and that format, about the golden mean.  The egg is white and insipd, how can a colorful picture come from that?"  That last bit must have been a rhetorical question.  Learn more at Skarstedt.com.  Through April 16th.

Untitled, 1996

Egg Sock, 1996

Untitled (Showcase with egg sculptures), 1996

Untitled (Showcase with egg sculptures) close-up, 1996

Portrait Paul Schreber,1994

Portrait Paul Schreber close-up, 1994

Eierverliebte (Infatuated Egg), 1996

Dinosaurierei (Dinosaur egg), 1996

Eifrau die man nicht schubladieren kann (Egg woman who defies categorization), 1996

Untitled (Grand Hotel), 1996, n/a

Das gute Eierfeierabenbuch (The Good Egg Leisure Pleasure book), 1993

Will Ryman | Park Avenue Mall, 57th - 67th Streets

Now that it feels like spring may have actually, finally arrived (please, please, please!), Will Ryman's The Roses seem more fitting (and less like a tease) along the Park Avenue Mall traveling up the road along 57th - 67th Streets.  Presented by The NYC Department of Parks & Recreation and Paul Kasmin Gallery, Ryman's site-specific installation consists of 38 Godzilla-sized pink and red roses standing between 3 and 25 feet tall with blossoms measuring 5 to 10 feet in diameter.  The enormous, whimsical roses made of stainless steel, "yacht-grade" fiberglass resin, auto body paint, and brass were created to endure unpredictable weather — they were covered in over a foot of snow after a blizzard hit the city shortly after they were installed in late January.  The charming, colorful, monstrously oversized flowers are accessorized with thorns, leaves, fallen rose petals (mostly scattered along the stretch between 63rd and 65th Streets), as well as Mothra-sized ladybugs, bees, and beetles. 

Ryman, a native New Yorker (his parents are painters Robert Ryman and Merrill Wagner), was initially a playwright before becoming an artist known for "large-scale figurative sculptures based on urban scenes and outsized flora," (from Paul Kasmin website).  In explaining his installation, Ryman states:  "With these roses I wanted to do something that was larger than life and site-specific.  In my work I always try to combine fantasy with reality.  In the case of The Roses, I tried to convey New York City's larger than life qualities through scale; creating blossoms which are imposing, humorous, and hopefully beautiful."  Parks & Recreation Commissioner Adrian Benepe adds, "Park Avenue is known for its beautiful floral displays and Will Ryman's massive roses, ranging between three and twenty-five feet in height, will enliven the area throughout the winter, in anticipation of the arrival of the tulips in the spring."

The Roses, situated in the medians between the traffic lanes on the always bustling Park Avenue, give viewers a "bugs-eye-view" of the flowers, making us feel puny in this big, crazy city.  Whether covered in mounds of snow or basking in sunlight, Ryman's dramatic, cheerful, freakishly huge blooms are a delight.  Learn more at Paulkasmingallery.com, nycgovparks.org and at the artist's website Willryman.com.  Through May 31st.