mountshang

McCarthy-Southard Loft

2011-11-07T11:07:00.020-06:00

Subsequent to my review
of Mary McCarthy's exhibit at the Union League Club,
the artist invited me over to her loft
for a glass of wine.

Since that review was positive,
I had no fear of getting beaten up.

So I accepted.

It's quite a place - an old factory
with 15 foot ceilings
that now serves as the home/studio
of Mary and Don Southard

(above, she is graciously presenting one of his paintings,
while one of her grid paintings,
resembling a Go board,
is up on the wall behind)

Coincidences abounded,
as it turned out that I had recently seen
the above freakish portrait of Don
as produced by a Forest Park neighbor of mine,
Tom Van Eynde
who presented him as harlequin,
i.e. a comic character from the Commedia Del'Arte
that originated as "a black-faced emissary of the devil, said to have roamed the countryside with a group of demons chasing the damned souls of evil people to Hell."

Alas, poor Don!

I don't think he's still chasing bad people down to hell,
but he does often have a rather comic view of the human condition
as seen in the large painting shown above.
(which was my favorite)

That black-and-white image of himself
reminded me of a that famous
German painter who ended up in St. Louis,
and Don reminded me that his name
was Beckmann,
which is another nice thing about Don.

He remembers more art history than I do.

Here's another one of his paintings
that Mary pulled out for me to enjoy.

As you can see above,
Don collects primitive sculpture
which goes quite well
with the painting by Mary
that is hanging above it.

Here's a few more of
his African pieces.

Don modestly admits
that they are not of museum quality,
but as I once asserted
most of the pieces in museums
are not of museum quality either.

And they're definitely
a cut above
what shows up on the streets
of Chicago art fairs.

That's Mary's studio,
behind the partition
of ornamental objects.

And these are the paintings
that got me interested in her
in the first place.

This one is my favorite.

She's such a swinger!

She needs to be doing cover art
for the re-issues of Blue Note jazz albums
from the 1950's.

Now we're inside Don's studio
which seems to have time-warped
from Paris, 1910

Don has this crazy idea,
with which I happen to agree,
that originality is highly over rated,
so he copies things.

But like Picasso,
it's more like an opportunity
for him to make another one
of his own paintings
rather than to present
an accurate facsimile.

That sculpture by him
in the upper left corner
was adapted from another artist's drawing.

Here's his take
on the famous Ingres painting
which he tells me
was originally inside a square
rather than a circle.

And here's Uccello's famous
Battle of San Romano
that Norris Kelly Smith and I
discussed over here

And finally,
here's some more pieces
from their collection.

(the yellow geometric piece is by Mark Holmes)

Stanley Lewis

Those Fingers Through My Hair

2011-10-26T07:40:00.009-05:00

Those fingers through my hair
That sly come hither stare
that strips my conscience bare
it's witchcraft

I would have to confess,
but only under torture, of course,
to a fascination with witchcraft
subsequent to the above Sinatra song
and this movie that I saw when I was about twelve.

How cool was that!
Only witches can turn off streetlights
by snapping their fingers.

Though my enthusiasm waned
when my only remaining friend from high school
disappeared after an unfortunate involvement
with the occult.

His story was dramatized by the Unsolved Mysteries television program.

(Here's the video filmed at my art club nearly 20 years ago
and featuring yours truly as one of the talking heads)

So now I think that witches should probably be avoided,
( unless, of course, they look as good as Kim Novak )
and art made by witches does not especially appeal to me.

Except that Elijah Burgher
a recent graduate from the S.A.I.C.
is so darn good.

I saw his work last weekend at the Iceburg Projects booth at the MDW Fair in a re-purposed factory
on the south side of Chicago.

Lured there by this post from a local art maven,
visiting this fair was almost a total loss for me.
(but then, so is the Museum of Contemporary Art
which has a much larger budget)

But Mr. Burgher is one of the best figurative artists
working in the city today,
and even if he died (or disappeared) tomorrow,
I suspect that one of his pieces would appear
in a survey of early 21st C. Chicago art
done in a hundred years.

North Park Art Walk : 2011

2011-10-13T06:27:00.012-05:00

It was time for the second annual Anna Koh Salon - also known as the North Park Art Walk

Above is Anna and Jeff's maquette for a current commission depicting the first American-born saint: Elizabeth Ann Seton

How complex, how melodramatic, and how Victorian! The final 8-foot panels were in the beginning stages of modeling.

(BTW - here's a design my father made to compete for a Mother Seton commission back in the early 60's. It didn't win, and ended up in my bedroom until I went off to college)

Meanwhile, Jeff has been back at the easel lately, defying every standard of art made after 1900.

(though I think Aristotle, as well as Plato, would have been pleased)

Here's his work-in-progress.

Ryan Shultz

Many of last year's artists were missing, but there were so many good, new ones.... I think the show the show was better than ever.

Melinda Whitmore

Melinda Whitmore

Catherine Maize

Her gallery brings her to Art Chicago every year.

I love this early 20th C. Modernism.

Kim Chong Massey

The title of this piece is "Memory" - and yes, that's how memories feel to me.

Janet Metzger

An exciting new discovery for me, she got an MFA from the School of the Art Institute in 1995, but then "took a sabbatical" to raise several children.

Now that all the children are in school, she's back at the easel doing portraits of some of her fellow moms -- much more sensitive, and beautiful, than similar portrait-pattern arrangements done by Kehinde Wiley

Ivan Albright

There were a few dead artists in this year's show, as well.

The above is especially interesting because it's a portrait of the artist's father, the painter Adam Emory Albright.

Fritzi Brod (1900-1952)

Here's a self portrait by a Czech/Chicago artist completely new to me.

She wrote a book about floral patterns.

Barton Faist

And here's a portrait of C.S. Lewis by the artist/dealer who brought the two historic pieces shown above.

Elsa Munoz

A rising star in Chicago art, this view through her grandmother's window is typical of her feeling-saturated paintings.

David Abed

Tim Lowly

Lowly teaches art at nearby North Park University

Here's his explanation.

Lois Raub

In the foreground is a terra cotta by Lois.

On the wall behind, is a portrait of her by her husband, Keith.

They've been married for as long as I've been alive. (and I'm on the mailing list of the AARP )

I wish we had more exhibits of mosaic.

It has a history that I really enjoy -- and the pieces last forever, unless there's an earthquake or barbarian invasion.

North Park is a culturally diverse neighborhood - and here's one of my favorite storefronts that's a fine piece of conceptual art.

It seems to be a miracle that the sign itself doesn't fall crashing into the street below.

Michael Ruback

And speaking of conceptual art, this is Michael's conception of the composer, Charles Ives, sitting upon a "musical chair"

Minh Do

Nobody but Rembrandt does a scraggly beard better than Minh.

Matthew Almy

This scene depicts one of the psalms where David thanks the Lord after battle.

It doesn't feel like an historical re-enactment, but I'm sure that's not the point.

Artist-Writers Part I

2011-07-26T08:47:00.007-05:00

Narcissus

As noted in my review of the
7th Annual National Self-Portrait Exhibition
at the Zhao B. Art Center in Chicago,
the above painting caught my eye.

Because even though it's a self portrait,
it steps back to be about self regard in general,
a much more frightening psychological subject
and suitable for Classical poetry

The artist was Brian Curtis who is
something of a classicist.

Perhaps if all of the other 149 artists in the self-portrait show
were as well,
he would not have been so remarkable.

But indeed, he was the only one offering gem-like quality and wry wit
instead of crude self expression and a clownish sense of humor.

******************

As a professor,
he also goes around
to academic conferences
where he delivers papers on
topics like:

* "De-nuding the curriculum"
* "why n'art aint art"
* "a generation without studio training"
* "an ecosystem of interruption technologies:
the internet as a distraction, numbing, mind-altering substance"
* "Duchamps legacy"

.... and, of course :

* "A Voice Crying in the Wilderness"

where he tells us that:

I am an academic-leaning artist who was educated by modernists and who now finds himself teaching in a world that privileges contemporary anti-art practice. The pedagogical habitat that once supported the goal of fostering visual sensitivity, talent, craftsmanship, and creativity is fading rapidly from college level art school programs. This goal is being displaced - and increasingly replaced - by the de-skilling and dematerializing promotion of something called artist's attitude.

Truly a scholar
worthy to share the purple mushrooms
of those who live on Mount Shang.

Artist-Writers Part II

2011-07-21T06:41:00.009-05:00

"One Up", Farm west of Saskatoon, 2011

I've recently run into some very impressive artist-writers
so I thought I'd pay tribute to their paintings
and cogitate their ideas.

Terry Fenton (b. 1940)
makes me love a landscape
in cold, flat, dreary Canada
that I'm never going to visit.

His paintings are like plays with two actors,
the prairie and the sky,
and remind me of the Jeff Aeling paintings
I've seen here in Chicago.

Interestingly enough,
he has also had a 25 year career
as a Canadian art museum director :

1993-97 Director, Mendel Art Gallery, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
1972-87 Director, The Edmonton Art Gallery, Edmonton, Alberta.

********************

But despite that pedigree,
and even if he's the best living landscape painter in the world,
he will never be displayed in a Chicago museum
(at least in my life time)
because of the same categorical exclusion
triumphantly espoused
by Fenton's hero,
Clement Greenberg,
for whom Fenton has organized
a very handy website

************

Five years ago, I sent a letter to James Cuno,
the incoming director of the Art Institute of Chicago,
asking him why "you don’t expand your notion of the “encyclopedic museum” up to contemporary times – and attempt to present the diversity of today’s cultures – including our own – in which contemporary landscape, wildlife, and portrait painting seems to be categorically excluded from display at the A.I.C."

He replied that this work "was not of our time",
an explanation that could have been lifted directly
from "Avant Garde and Kitsch"
reflecting that :

"superior consciousness of history -- more precisely, the appearance of a new kind of criticism of society, an historical criticism"
(i.e. Marxism)
that distinguished the "high level" avant garde culture
with its "imitation of imitating" from the"vicarious experience and faked sensations" of the"debased and academicized simulacra of genuine culture"where the half-educated peasant
"recognizes and sees things in the way in which he recognizes and sees things outside of pictures -- there is no discontinuity between art and life",

a distinction that was re-affirmed
21 years later in his essay, "Modernist Painting"
with the presentation of the notion of "purity":

"It quickly emerged that the unique and proper area of competence of each art coincided with all that was unique in the nature of its medium. The task of self-criticism became to eliminate from the specific effects of each art any and every effect that might conceivably be borrowed from or by the medium of any other art. Thus would each art be rendered "pure," and in its "purity" find the guarantee of its standards of quality as well as of its independence. "Purity" meant self-definition, and the enterprise of self-criticism in the arts became one of self-definition with a vengeance."

"Realistic, naturalistic art had dissembled the medium, using art to conceal art; Modernism used art to call attention to art"

23 years later,
in a lecture about "taste"
Greenberg would remind us that he was using scare quotes around the word "purity"
and he was only noting it as the report of a journalist
rather than as his own, critical ideal.

Indeed, there is much to be admired in that
entire discussion of "true taste":

"True taste, genuine taste, develops, expands, grows. It changes only insofar as it corrects itself, true taste."

So now he is the wise sage of traditional aesthetics, rather than the firebrand prophet of the avant garde; but it's nothing more than the shallow, self-serving rant of a careerist responding to a different situation.

"datedness is not a valid aesthetic judgment. It doesn't say whether art is good or bad. Dated art can be as good as up-to-date art. (There are qualifications there; but I won't go into them.) You can't dismiss a work of art because it's derivative. There may be a certain degree beyond which derivativeness does hurt art, but derivativeness as such, doesn't, isn't crucial to the quality of a work."

Do you hear that, James Cuno?

No, of course not, because by 1983 Greenberg was no longer a prophet who was calling the winners,
he was just a nice old codger covering the tracks
that led right into the disaster that is the contemporary artworld.

"Where do I want to see art go? I want to see art go back to the kind of realism that a minor Impressionist, like Caillebotte practiced or that Fantin Latour practiced in his still lifes, not in his figure compositions. But it's very unlikely it will go that way, but I'd be overjoyed to see major art go that way. And I'm talking about major art."

Doesn't that sound good ?

But alas, he's as phony now as he was in 1939 when he first turned his then fashionable, left-wing critical writing over to topics in art.

If he really wanted to " see art go back to the kind of realism that a minor Impressionist, like Caillebotte practiced", why didn't he actually promote and review it?

But, Terry Fenton has written about
many other topics as well,
including Giovanni Bellini, "St. Francis in Ecstasy" ,
one of my favorite paintings of all time.

As Fenton concludes "Within a complex landscape, bathed with morning light, St. Francis steps forth to greet "Brother Sun" and a new day rendered in loving detail by a very great artist. At once naturalistic and visionary, this is one of the world's perfect pictures."

(BTW - Here's what Norris Kelly Smith had to say:

The old balance between self and world depended in good part upon the conviction that all things, human and nonhuman alike, are God’s creations, a conviction we see most beautifully expressed in Giovanni Bellini’s painting The Stigmatization (or Ecstasy) of St. Francis now housed in the Frick, in which the artist avows that St. Francis, Moses, and the rocky bluffs of Mt. Laverna have all been created by the same hand and in the same style.)

Fenton also has some interesting things to say
about the "disequilibrium" of one of my favorite sculptors, Tilman Riemenschneider

Disequilibrium?

That's usually how I feel!

(especially while writing this post)

so maybe that is why I love him so.

********

And finally, you should take a look here
at Fenton's web museum of fellow Canadian landscape painters.

They almost make me wish
I had sought asylum across the border
back when Selective Service
was on my heels.

The White Goddess in Chicago

2011-07-17T08:14:00.019-05:00

Seward Johnson's 26-foot "Forever Marilyn" has been provoking some controversy upon its installation last week in Pioneer Court, just northeast of the Michigan Avenue bridge in Chicago.

Abraham Ritchie blogged that:

"it caters to cheap titillation, titillation that is in itself pathetic. By making Monroe's panties visible, Johnson encourages voyeurism. When I visited it recently there were no less than three men taking pictures of Monroe's rear. If a clumsily rendered giantess puts wind in your sails, you have issues."

... then, demonstrating his higher education, he added:

"In artspeak, this piece reifies (makes real) the male gaze (dudes scoping out women"

Mary Schmich of the Chicago Tribune picked up the ball, adding that:

What's most disturbing about the sculpture, though, is not that it's mediocre. It's the fact that Marilyn Monroe was real. She wasn't a sci-fi amazon. She was more than an image. She was a real woman who died at the age of 36 of a drug overdose, perhaps by suicide. Inviting people to leer at her giant underpants is just icky.

While Richard Roeper of the Chicago Sun Times dittos both of the above sentiments: it's a poorly done sculpture and we should be ashamed of ogling those panties:

" It’s not that the sculpture is shocking or sexist or obscene — but it’s definitely bringing out the juvenile goofball in many of us."

... and here are some other digs:

*This is not art that could be described as "making people think." Not by a long shot.

*It's creepy schlock from a fifth-rate sculptor that blights a first-rate public art collection.

*as tawdry as a peep show

*The original image is coy. Marilyn on the Mag Mile is crude.

Which is to say,
that even if "taste"
is irrelevant to contemporary art,
this sculpture
is in very bad taste.

But as "The Queer Guy" responded on Ritchie's blog:

"And as far as being replicated to death, it's for good reason! This is not only a symbol of sexual freedom, but for that of personal expression.

While I would add that the statue is also the dramatic emergence
of the White Goddess" ,
in this, her full moon, sexually active phase
(after virginity, and prior to the crone)

And it's only fitting
that people want to touch her

and connect to the fullness
of her sexual energy

especially young women themselves,
as they enter that period of their life,
and, of course, old men
who still stare upwards with wonder
at the great mystery.

Devotee that I am,
I have walked around the statue
with a camera
to offer people from around the world
views of our amazing statue,
as she was being worshiped
late Saturday afternoon

Isn't it delightful
how the forms of a monumental standing figure
can humanize the severity of the steel and glass boxes
of modern urban architecture?

Doesn't this look so much better than
the bent pipes and naked steel bars
of contemporary minimalist sculpture ?

Is this a great statue?

No.

Thanks to half a century of iconoclasm
followed by irony-ridden pop art,
American figure sculpture is at a low ebb,
and this piece is
only really fit for
an amusement park.

As with the joke art made for Jeff Koons,
the artisans who actually modeled this piece
remain anonymous.

Incompetent modeling
has left these facial features feeling harsh,
so inappropriate for
the beloved triple-goddess.

While the hair looks like
lumps of gloppy vermicelli.

It's a little toy made big,
and nowhere is that more painful
than in this distant view.

But still,
it's a step in the right direction,
as this piece replaces this one ,
that was nothing more
than a joke twice removed.

Even without the references
to Marilyn Monroe and the Billy Wilder movie,
this is a meaningful pose.

Pushing down on her thighs,
(is she touching her crotch?),
the figure is lifting her head in ecstasy
while a strong wind from behind
is blowing up between her legs.

It's as if she's just discovering,
and delighting in,
her own sexuality
as she feels it
and others admire it.

Her innocent naughtiness
seems to epitomize American consumer culture
and the advertising that stimulates it,
so what could be a better place for her
than on the Magnificent Mile?

Like statues of Lincoln,
every American town
should have one.

If only sculptors as good
as Daniel Chester French
were still around to make them.

Once again,
Americans need to be reminded
that there is nothing wrong
with sexual energy
and the forms
that visually arouse it.

It's an appetite
that does need to be managed with discretion
in our daily lives,
but what doesn't?

Buddhist Shrine in Chicago

2011-07-10T11:35:00.005-05:00

After visiting the "Movie Mojo" exhibit
at the Chicago Cultural Center,
I had to pay a visit
to Primitive Gallery in Chicago
who sponsored it.

With four floors of furniture, sculpture, fabrics, and odd stuff
from around the world,
it's quite a fascinating place,
or actually,
a collection of places,

my favorite of which was the
Buddha Room

Stooping down
to enter through a short,
antique doorway,
you're surrounded by scenes from the life of the Buddha
as painted by a young, contemporary
artist from Nepal.

And he's very good,
though not great.

But it's the sculpture that mostly
interested me,
specifically the two pieces
that I'm showing here.

No date was given for the above,
but it's so much better
than most contemporary Buddhist or Hindu sculpture
which, even if large,
never feels more profound than
knick-knacks at a gift shoppe.

This piece is attributed
to a mid 20th Century sculptor
named Raj Bhai,
but I couldn't find
anything more about him
on the internet.

Unless it's been done by famous Italians ,
all religious art of the 20th Century
is practically anonymous,
especially in the third world.

China in Milwaukee

2011-06-21T21:12:00.022-05:00

The world of the aging Qianlong Emperor,
shown above,
is the focus of this current exhibit
at the Milwaukee Museum of Art.

Back in the summer of 2004
the Field Museum
introduced us to the young emperor
who has become something of an icon
for a country
that is finally returning
to the strength and prosperity of his era
by reversing the cash flow
that once went out
to buy British and American opium,
and now is coming back
with the sale of consumer goods.

But as you can see
whatever optimism the emperor
had as a young man
has definitely disappeared over time.

And though he is recognized
as one of the greatest art collectors
of all time,
he liked to deface his favorite paintings
with his own enormous chop.

...not just once,
but using different chops
he smothered the scroll.
(most of those shown above are his)

My theory is that he stamped the scroll
every time he unrolled it,
but a local brush painting teacher
believes that he covered the scroll
with his stamp to prevent anyone else
from leaving their mark
in the centuries that followed.

This insane rootwood furniture
was the highlight
as far as I was concerned

It's not really rootwood,
it's just carved to imitate
its wild abandon
while still holding
to a sense of design.

It's something like rococo,
but feels less light hearted.

I suppose it exemplifies
natural forces under human control,
but that control seems fiendishly difficult.

No wonder it was locked away
in dark, unswept rooms
for 200 years.

One of his many thrones,
this one was on the top floor
of the tallest pavillion

This series of panels
depicting some rather coarse
Buddhist saints is based on a rubbing
from a carving that was taken
from a copy of a painting
that the emperor saw
on one of his trips to the south.

I don't really share
the emperor's enthusiasm
for it.

The largest figure in this shrine
is the emperor himself
depicted as the righteous
wheel-turning-king.

Above him, is his guru, Rolpy Dorje
the reincarnation of the highest priest
of the Mongolian Tibetan Buddhists.

The two of them were classmates
in prince school.

At the top is Tsongkhapa ( 1357-1419),
the founder of the Yellow-Hat sect
to which the Dali Lama belongs.

The Manchu emperors and the Yellow Hat lamas
recognized each others respective authority
in temporal and spiritual affairs.

This is a detail
from a charming trompe l'oeil mural
that depicts the imperial family
celebrating New Year.

Here's an example
of the emperor's calligraphy.

It's strong and elegant,
though not especially inspired.

Here's something by his son, the Jiaqing Emperor.

It feels as bloated as he was.

Just outside the Qianlong gallery,
is the
James Conley collection of Han Dynasty
tomb sculpture.

I'm especially fond
of these entertainers

These Laurel and Hardy figurines
from our era
seem a bit stiff and formal
by comparison.

This hallway in the new museum
is so enjoyable.

The wonderfully goofy Han Dynasty!

In what other time and place
could the "Romance of the Three Kingdoms"
have taken place?

These are roof decorations
from the Ming Dynasty

The Sculpture Petting Zoo

2011-06-13T07:03:00.003-05:00

Josef Korbel (1882-1954)

While searching for another exhibit
(I was given some bad directions)
I stumbled across the sculpture petting zoo
down in the children's area
in the basement of the Art Institute

Apparently, the pieces have been
specially coated
to withstand the rigors
of grimy little hands.

And though I was tempted, myself,
to fondle the marble and bronze surfaces,
it also turned out to be a nice exhibit
of 20th C. American sculptural portraiture.
(of which not a single piece is on display
in the adult galleries)

Marco Zim (1880-1963)

This is a thoroughly disparaged genre
which is now suitable only for child's play,
but maybe someday
it will once again be invited
to sit at the big people's table.

But why was this bust
from the Tang Dynasty
also included?

It's not like there's another one
just like it
on display in the Chinese rooms.

It's a nice piece.

These pieces from western Mexico
were also shown in that area
(though not for petting)

And again, I'm wondering
why they aren't being shown
in the adult galleries.

I never get tired of this genre.

If the museum has more of it
stashed away somewhere,
I which they'd shove it
into a display case.

Four Statues in Aurora

2011-05-23T09:02:00.011-05:00

I'm not a big fan
of contemporary American narrative sculpture
because it works like a cartoon in the funny papers.

I.e., once you get the idea,
there's nothing else to look at.

But I do like this one by A. Joseph Kinkel
parked in the front lawn
of the Aurora Regional Fire Museum

Maybe, that's because the fireman
resembles a recently deceased
friend of mine

Or, maybe it's because
I really like this dog,
which would be a good statue
all by itself.

Or, maybe because
this is how I feel
getting up in the morning
rushing out to
deal with my own little fires.

Or maybe because it's a good sculpture.

I certainly like it
a lot more anything else
I could find on the artist's website
most of which feels terminally cute
to me.

**************

This is Preston Jackson's statue
of community activist, Marie Wilkinson .

Opting not to put her up on a pedestal,
instead, she's parked on a bench
in front of the Aurora public library,
inviting the viewer to sit beside her
and have a little chat.

She looks like a sweet, playful,
but also very determined person.

And quite lively,
as projected by Jackson's
somewhat cubist style.

Jackson has an aggressive style of
sharp edges, sinuous lines,
and puffy, balloon like volumes
that seems to recall
the early 20th C.
but not much ever since.

I've seen several
statues-sitting-on-benches,
and usually they seem,
to me,
to have been abandoned there.

But this one rises up
and demands interaction.

Artropolis 2011

2011-05-18T06:42:00.019-05:00

Richard Kooyman

If I were to curate an exhibit
of items selected from this mammoth art fair,
it might be called "Views of the world".

(while an exhibit of everything I left behind
might be called "Are you shocked yet?")

Richard Kooyman

In general,
I seem to like views
of places that were not intended
to be seen.

Joseph Noderer

Why do I love run down places?

Anelecia Hannah

Especially sinks and bathrooms.

Cathy Lees

Maybe it's because
it's so much harder
to successfully paint places that were intended
to be beautiful.

Kim Cogan

Werner Drewes, 1932

He's better known as an abstract painter,
but I like this scene that reminds me of
small industrial towns in eastern Ohio.

Harold Shapinsky

This may have been shocking in 1950,
but was rear-guard by the time it was painted (1984)

He never achieved the brand recognition
of some of his peers,
perhaps because he was just too decorative.

Fairfield Porter

Paul Brown "Tiger"

I would like to imagine this large piece
hanging in a Rajah's hunting lodge,
beside a dozen others,
each one featuring a beautiful woman
of a different ethnicity
reclining on the pelt
of a different dead carnivore.

Robert Bauer

A bit anemic,
but some people are like that.

Bo Bartlett

This year's Bo Bartlett is one of my favorites.

I need to own this painting!

So I can perpetually wake up in the morning
in a beautiful room, in a beautiful place
with a beautiful woman.

None of which will bore me because
it's only a painting.

Renoir, 1892

Last year, I remember the Antiques Fair
had an entire gallery of bogus old masters.

But this one feels real,
and trumps all of the contemporary landscapes

Xavier Barile

Very good at what he did,
but condemned, I suppose,
to perpetual obscurity
outside the narrative of modern art.

Vaclav Vytlacil

This is my thing:
Modern Classicism.

If only Picasso had stuck with it.

******** sculpture**********

Hanneke Beaumont

One of the few contemporary figure sculptors
who makes it to the fair every year.

A bit grim and depressing,
but so much better than
all the un-sculptural doll makers.

Nicolas Africano

Here's the other figure sculptor who makes an annual appearance in this show with his lonely, beautiful, translucent women.

He may be just another doll-maker, but dolls can be beautiful too.

And he may be the only non-commission, non-teaching artist to make a living making nude figures in Illinois, if not the entire Midwest.

And every year,
there's some "new" Tang figures.

(either newly dug up - or newly made.
I hope it's the latter,
indicating the rebirth
of a great tradition)

Izdrojevicz Lipa (1907-1960)

An exiled Russian aristocrat
who took up sculpture
and did a good job.

Marcel Renard (1893-1974)

For whatever reason
in the early 20th Century
figure sculpture was more widely used
as a decorative art
than figure painting.

Marcel Renard

Other than the top
of his "Kneeling Girl"
we don't get to see much Lehmbruck
in Chicago.

This piece was hopelessly lit,
but enjoyable anyway.

*********** Chicago Artists ************

Anthony Angarola

Was he really creepy enough
to be the favorite painter of H.P. Lovecraft?

Above is a portrait of his wife, a concert pianist.

Gertrude Abercrombie

The daughter of opera singers,
and a true bohemian,
this was her portrait of another artist,
Edward Millman (1936)

Here's her self portrait from the same year.

What a woman!

Ed Paschke

Has any other painter
given their work
such a pleasant, neon glow?

Roger Brown

This piece has a nice glow, too

John Storrs

Here's Chicago's most famous
modern sculptor,
with a portrait of Jean Schweppe (1914-1963),
a socialite who was the grand daughter
of John G. Shedd

*********** Paul Thiebaud Gallery************

Celia Breisman

As it turns out,
this is my favorite gallery
at the fair.

Celia Breisman

As you look at the prices,
most of these artists
have to work very hard
to make a living.

Tom Birkner

But they offer what I like to see:

pleasant scenes of the world in which we live.

Eileen David

Catherine Maize

Catherine Maize

Catherine Maize

*********** Mary Qian's picks ***********

Russian

Here's Mary Qian's picks

Russian

Unfortunately, she did not record the name of the artist,
but only the nationality.

Korean

I kind of remember the Korean gallery
that had this kind of painting.

But it didn't appeal enough to me
to get me to stop and look longer at it.

And, it still doesn't.

French

English

English

Are these drawings of shrunken heads?

************

Here's another take on the fair, by former gallerist, Paul Klein.

He says there's too many mediocre galleries/artists -- but he won't tell us which ones.

Has the fair gotten worse as it has lost the prestige it had 20 years ago?

I do miss the two New York galleries that used to entertain me: Marlboro and Arcadia.

But I see absolutely no correlation between status and quality in the artworld.

Paul Klein says that he doesn't miss "the fat cats who used to come to ArtChicago to hunt for trophies -- but I do miss seeing the trophies they pursued"

While I miss neither one.

Maillol's girl friend

2011-04-15T10:15:00.013-05:00

One of the perks
of being a famous old man
is the company
of beautiful young women.

And so in 1930
the 69 year old
Aristide Maillol (1861-1944)
fell in love with his model,
Lucile Passavant (1910 - ?),
who posed for the above figure.

Maillol didn't do portraits,
but Lucile was the model for this head.

And Lucile was the model for the middle figure
of these Three Graces.

But Lucile was more than just a model,
as one may surmise from these excerpts
from the journal of his patron,
Count Harry Kessler:

"Mme Maillol accompanied me to the studio where, as she phrased it, ‘il a modele’. Maillol introduced me to his ‘model’, Lucile Passavant, who was just dressing again. I did not find her very beautiful. She is somewhat plump and rather crudely rouged. But she is intelligent. Maillot showed me some ceramic figures which he promptly followed and expostulated, ‘Voyez-vous comme ma femmë est insupportable; elle ne veut pas que je vous parle seul. Je n’en peux plus. Elle me fait des scenes perpétuelles,’ and so on.. I had already said to Mme Maillol in the garden that it would do her husband, who is still in poor health, good to have a change of air. She agreed. I now again proposed to him that he should come with me to Weimar. He accepted with visible pleasure and relief, disappointed only to the extent that we shall not be able to leave until next week. He appeared to assume as a matter of course that Mlle Passavant would accompany us and that his wife would not be aware of the fact.

It amounts to a thoroughgoing flight from the married state, and in the case of a sixty-seven-year-old man there is something tragic about that. I have however no scruples about assisting him. For the past thirty years his wife has, with her insane jealousy, stood in his way and prevented him from ever having an acceptable model. He has had to make do with all sorts of of random photographs and magazines devoted to nudes.

I invited Maillot to come to lunch tomorrow. If he liked, he could bring along Mlle Passavant and we could mise au point the execution of his woodcuts by her. He was delighted. When we returned to the garden, ‘Clotilde’, as Mailiol calls his wife, could not hide her ill-humour at my offering to take Mlle Passavant with me in the car to Paris. On the way shç told me that her mother, a painter, had at the age of nearly forty married a man of twenty. She herself was sixteen at the time. Life at home became intolerable for her. She left and managed somehow to survive until she began to model for Maillol. I find her quite appealing, but she belongs to that type of lower-middle-class, plumpish, made-up Parisiennes whom, as far as their outward appearance goes, I do not care for.

At noon Maillol and Mile Passavant arrived for lunch. He was beaming. We discussed details of the trip to Weimar. I told him that it would be pleasanter for me if he and I travelled alone. He can get Mlle Passavant to follow; I could raise no objection to that. But if she came with us, apart from it not being agreeable to me, it might be awkward for him if his wife should insist on seeing him off at the station. He appreciated the point. After the meal we drove to Zay to buy tools and then I dropped the two, radiant as freshly weds, at a cinema where they proposed to watch the film The Night Is Ours.

But happily,
in addition to having the kind
of young, firm, heavy body
that Maillol loved,
Lucile was indeed a bright girl,
with a talent for sculpture.

Above is one of her pieces,
which, I think, compares
quite favorably with what
Maillol was doing
at that time.

Her young mind was like a sponge,
soaking up the master's sense
of form and design.

She also picked up
his sense of graphic design.

She carved these woodcuts
to illustrate classical poetry
just like Aristide had done
years earlier.

She was a natural.

But she was a bit
too free spirited
to do Maillol knock-offs forever.

She ventured out
to explore her own sense of
human form

and I think that's where
she began to get into trouble

The farther away she went,
the worse she got.

At least in my opinion.

Regrettfully,
Maillol must have never
talked to her
about making reliefs.

A lot of her pieces
show up on internet auctions

And so far,
only her birth date
has been listed.

So, perhaps
this centinarian
is still alive!

France 1500

2011-03-13T07:54:00.021-05:00

The Three Stags Tapestry

And now for a little tour
of the Kings, Queens, and Courtiers exhibit
at the Art Institute.

(as pulled off the internet)

lots of delicious details
for this one

Jean Fouquet

These images are arranged
in approximately the order
that the pieces might be seen
while strolling from the
entrance of the exhibit
to the exit.

And I'm only showing
my favorites
(though there were a few
for which images
could not be found)

Andre D'Ypres

One scene
from a series
on the Trojan War

St. Michael and the devil

Our Lady of Grace

This room also had
three marble masks
attributed to Franceso Laurana
but sadly,
way short
of this one
at the Frick

Follower of Nicolas Froment
(looks a bit like
Newt Gingrich and wife #3,
doesn't it?)

Jean Poyer

Jean Bourdichon

Jean Colombe
(this page was on display)

These two above pages come from the same book
but could not be seen.

(the entire book is shown here )

Jean Poyer
Massacre of the Innocents
from the Hours of Henry VIII

(this page was on view)

Poyer
The Month of May

(more off-view pages from the same book)

Poyer
St. Jerome
(off view)

Poyer
Saint Gregory celebrating Mass
(off view)

Poyer
Christ in the Garden
(off view)

The rest of the book can be seen here

note: two questions that arise:

1. Would it really be too difficult
for the curator to turn the page
every week or so during the exhibit
so visitors could see more of the book?

2. Why were so many books placed in such deep cases
that do not allow for closer inspection
of such small paintings?

Guillaume Bregnault

Jean Guilhomet

Here are some
of the 10
paintings by
Jean Hey
on display.

Above is my favorite

But I'm also fond of this one
which the A.I.C. has had
for about 80 years.

Don't care much for this one

Normandy, 1500

Josse Lieferinxe

Jean Perreal
in the
"Little Book of Love"

Narcissus
(from the Boston Museum)

Andrea Solario

Lorenzo da Muzzano

This was the Leonardo
that was included
when the show went to Paris.

(and I'm afraid that
Chicago got the consolation prize)

Arthur Putnam

2011-03-09T07:31:00.006-06:00

Just came across
more pictures
from the work
of Arthur Putnam (1873-1930)

An extraordinary anamalier
who spent a few months
with Edward Kemeys and Rupert Schmidt
but was basically self-taught
following his interest
in wild creatures.

He went for
the essential gesture.

And what's so remarkable
is that not only did he capture the animal
but he controlled the
form-expressing clay
and became so attached
to the perfection of the final results
that he took up bronze casting.

Sadly, his career was cut short
by a brain tumor
after little more than a decade.

His rippling form
was just as dynamic as Rodin's,
but the human figure
just didn't fired him up as much.

Humans
just weren't wild enough
for him.

(Btw, here's one from the Met )

Our Lady of Grace

2011-02-27T18:51:00.006-06:00

Just discovered
this wonderful piece
in
this exhibition
at the Art Institute of Chicago

As usual,
photography
was not allowed

But happily,
this piece
is a celebrity
all over
the internet

Made around 1470
in Languedoc

Though what's missing
is a head-on shot
of the infant Jesus.

He is as delightful
as his mother.

What is especially wonderful
about Christian Madonnas
(as compared with, say, Chinese Quan Yin)
is that each one seems to have
a distinct personality.

Here's some
more sculpture from the Musee Des Augustins, Toulouse

Jerzy Nowosielski

2011-02-20T17:19:00.010-06:00

Visiting the Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art ,
I ran across 3 paintings
from the sixties and seventies by
Jerzy Nowosielski (b. 1924)
who is not Ukrainian
(he's a Pole from Krakow)
but I can see why he appealed
to the Ukrainian (Bohdan Kowalsky)
who collected them.

They feel like Orthodox saints
who have taken their clothes off,
and might have more
than just prayer
on their mind.

Something about the intense colors of
red and blue
seems to be so
contemporary Polish.

Are these the cooling towers
of a nuclear power plant?

This painting
is in the collection
of the Polish Museum
which unfortunately
can no longer afford
to show its art collection.

As explained here and here
Jerzy's mother was Roman Catholic,
his father was Ukrainian Catholic,
and Jerzy was enthralled with Orthodox art,
spending some months in a seminary
as a young man.

And he seems to have been
as interested in making icons
as modern-style paintings.

Wow, what a great one.

Here's a tour of a church
where he painted
Stations of the Cross

And he's also
something of a theologian,
having published a book
some of which is translated
here

Here's how he explains his nudes:

"...a full synthesis of matters spiritual with the empirical reality occurs precisely in the figure of the woman. ... If a painter is interested in corporality, in some way of uniting the spiritual with the world of physical entities, it is utterly natural that he develops an interest in the appearance of the woman."

An explanation
that works for me!

1965

1999

1997

1959

1971

1975

1959

Here's a still life
from 1954

and then he does this
amazing Egyptian thing

1972

"The Kidnap of Europa"

O.K.

From what I can tell,
Nowosielski
is the most renowned
painter in Poland.

So why doesn't
he have anything in
the art museum
of the second largest Polish City
in the world ?

The Art Institute is Selling Out its Legacy

2011-02-13T21:04:00.008-06:00

The Art Institute is Selling out its legacy

according to
this letter
to the editor
of the Chicago Sun Times
from one Hugh Ulrich of Pilsen

Sur l'impériale traversant la Seine
Picasso, 1901
(sold for $7,800,744)

"The Art Institute’s announcement that it will sell an early Picasso oil painting in New York this week is just the latest example of the museum selling off important objects and thinning out its famous collections in order to raise cash.
While all major museums sell art from time to time, The Art Institute’s sales, and its lack of important acquisitions to replace them, has gradually moved the museum down in the rankings of major encyclopedic museums in the U.S. over the last 75 years"

Perhaps the writer
was unaware
that the funds
would immediately be put
towards the purchase
of this
highly respected artifact
of modern art history.

But he would need to have read
The Wall Street Journal
to learn about that connection.
(Chicago newspapers did not cover the story)

The W.S.J. headline read:

"How many paintings does an American museum have to sell to raise funds for a single canvas by Russian modern painter Kazimir Malevich?"

And over at
The New York Times
Soren Melikan declared that it:

"has an Expressionist quality and an explosive vigor in mood and brushwork that sets it apart from anything else in the master’s early oeuvre."

"How the Art Institute of Chicago, to which it was bequeathed in 1933 by Mrs. Lewis Larned Coburn, could discard the rare masterpiece defies comprehension."

And I remember this canvas
quite vividly as well.

This was not a piece that was
kept in the basement.

It was up in a gallery
where it could be compared
to other post-Impressionists
and early Picasso's.

A comparison which visitors to the museum
will never make again.

Verre et pipe
Picasso, 1919 (sold for $695,800)

Here's the other Picasso
that got sold,
and this is one that
I do not remember.

It only entered the collection,
as a gift in 1989,
so perhaps it was never shown at all,
but turned into cash
when needed.

Femme au fauteuil
Matisse, 1919
(sold for $1,271,390)

I have no clear recollection
of ever seeing this painting, either.

It was probably on display,
but it just didn't grab me.

A bit too generic.

Nature morte à la guitare
(rideaux rouge)
Matisse, 1938
(sold for $6,361,768)

But this is another painting
that I remember quite well,
indeed,
it was one of my favorites
in the modern gallery.

Very sensual and musical.

I probably should have noticed its absence,
but pieces are always coming down
from the walls
to get cleaned or loaned.

How was I to know
that it was in line
to get de-accessioned ?

These images
are all taken off
the Christies website,
and one may also note
how much bigger they are
than what the museum
typically shows
on its own.

(i.e., the only reason to
show a really good image
is when a piece is getting sold)

Sand was used
to add some texture,
and I enjoy that feeling.

By the way,
above is the painting
that has apparently replaced it,
another large 1938 Braque
given to the museum in 1988.

Which one would you have sold
to raise money for the Malevich?

*******************

I do not share Mr. Ulrich's concern that the museum:

"has dropped from being arguably the best (for Impressionists) outside Paris in the 1930s to only the second or third most important in the U.S. today."

I don't care if:

"As recently as the 1970s, the Art Institute boasted that it had the best collection of modern art of any general museum in the world. That assertion would be laughable today."

Nor do I care whether:

"The Art Institute has become a second-tier American art museum over the last 75 years"

Because that's thinking about the art museum
as if it were a baseball, hockey, or football team.

But I can say
that the museum
has replaced some things I liked
to see periodically
with something that
I was only interested
in having seen once.

And I wish the museum
were a bit less secretive
about its operations.

As The Chicago Tribune reported:

"The paintings at hand ... have been considered for deaccession several times over the past several years, Art Institute spokeswoman Erin Hogan said"

So how about telling us
what other paintings or sculptures
have been (and still are)
under consideration for deaccession?

********

Though actually,
I'm not sure
that what the museum buys, keeps, or sells
is all that important.

What's really important is what it shows,
and since the wealthy benefactors
of the Art Institute
recently chipped in to
increase its display space by 50%,
I think they're doing their bit
for art in Chicago.

The rest of us
can make our contribution
by giving the museum
some feedback
concerning what it chooses to display.

Because we're the only ones
to whom these particular gallery walls
really matter.

Each and every museum curator and administrator
would be gone in a New York minute
when or if they were offered
a better job elsewhere.

The Other Modernism

2011-02-09T09:41:00.003-06:00

Here's a wonderful little bronze (82.5 cm)
by one of my favorite
20th C. sculptors,
Waino Aaltonen (1894-1966)

It was just sold
at auction
for 7400 Euros (about $10,000 )

So 6,500 of them
could have been purchased
with the money the Art Institute of Chicago
just spent on a a Kazimir Malevich

Is Waino somehow less modern than Kazimir?

He's 16 years younger,
he was considered
a modern sculptor in his day,
and his work
is just as distinctively 20th C.

He didn't write a manifesto like Malevich did,
but does anyone still seriously believe
that geometric art
expresses a more pure feeling
than pieces that are more recognizably figurative?

Though actually,
I'm quite glad
the A.I.C. did not buy
this piece
or 6,500 other
20th Century bronzes.

Because if they did,
all those pieces would
soon be sitting in the museum basement,
and nobody alive
would ever see them again.

When artworks
are left in the art market,
some people (even if a very few)
actually get to see them.

And when the next generation
puts them to auction,
large, juicy images,
like the ones above,
are published by the auction house.

Images that are far, far better
than anything any public art museum
is ever willing to offer.

Kazimir Malevich at the AIC

2011-02-06T08:13:00.010-06:00

"The Art Institute of Chicago announces one of the most
significant acquisitions in its history: Kazimir Malevich’s
Painterly Realism of a Football Player—Color Masses in
the 4th Dimension (1915). Joining such works as Georges
Seurat’s A Sunday on La Grande Jatte––1884, Edward
Hopper’s Nighthawks, El Greco’s Assumption of the Virgin,
Gustave Caillebotte’s Paris Street; Rainy Day, and Henri
Matisse’s Bathers by a River, Malevich’s masterpiece is the first
work of Russian Suprematism to enter the museum’s collection"

Wow.

That sounds really important - and in a way it is.

Apparently, there is photographic evidence
for 22 works in the Malevich show
"The Last Futurist Exhibition: 0, 10"
held in St. Petersburg, December, 1915.

Of these, the most famous, by far,
is the "Black square on white Ground" ,
which is no more or less than that,
and which currently resides
in the State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg.

Of the rest,
9 were lost or destroyed,
and this one
just came onto the market
as the result
of a lawsuit
filed by the Malevich heirs
against the Stedlijk Museum in Amsterdam.

(that story is here and here )

But even more significantly,
there was a long,
and very famous,
artist statement
which accompanied that 1915 exhibition.

Entitled
"From Cubism and Futurism to Suprematism: The New Realism in Painting"
this tract
sets down the minimalist ideology
that has been defining Modernism
at the Art Institute of Chicago
since at least 1979
when AIC curators
wrote their own manifestos
about "new realism"
in the catalog of the
73rd Annual American Exhibition

As Malevich is quoted here :

"The sensations of sitting, standing, or running are, first and foremost, plastic sensations and they are responsible for the development of corresponding 61 objects of use and largely determine their form."

And now Chicago
has an example
of someone running
(or falling head over heels)

I find the piece
to be very exciting,
but not so enjoyable
when viewed close up
as it is in the above shot
that I took yesterday.

His edges
appear rather fuzzy and careless,
and not the kind
of fuzzy and careless
that makes them look any better.

More like slipshod.

Even if the design
in reproduction
could not be
any more dynamic and exciting.

And one might note
that the other avant garde paintings
from that era
in the same gallery
do not have that problem.

Marcel Janco, 1918

For example,
this one,
by one of the original
members of Dada
from the Cabaret Voltaire.

Was Malevich always that unconcerned
with the close-up view?

Did he intend his paintings
to symbolize his theories
more than stand alone
as aesthetic objects?

I suppose
one will have to visit
the Stedelijk Museum
to find out.

Meanwhile,
we have this one,
rather disappointing,
piece here in Chicago,
and I can't help but wonder
how far that $65,000,000
would have gone to bring in examples
of non-Modernist Russian painting.

(of which the museum
currently has ZERO )

When (or if) the museum
finally begins to survey
a wider variety of 19th-21st Century art,
it will have a much better claim
for being truly encyclopedic

**********

Nikolai Suetin, 1925

BTW, as compared with Cubism, Futurism,
or any other modernist agenda,
the list of Suprematists is not very long.

But here's a nice coffee pot
designed by a student of Malevich.

Voyage of Life: Manhood

2011-02-01T09:10:00.003-06:00

I just stumbled upon
the above image
from a painting
called "The Voyage of Life: Manhood" (1840)
by Thomas Cole (1801-1848)

Wow.

That exactly how I feel
about my own journey.

Especially
since I've done
my share of river rafting
and there's nothing quite like
hearing and smelling
an approaching rapids
while being inexorably drawn
toward the brink
of falling water.

Here's the rest of the series:

Childhood

Youth

Old Age

And here's a Thomas Cole
from 1830,
"A Distant View of Niagara"
(brought to my attention
by this post on the A.I.C. blog)

As an accompanying note suggests
this was how the area around the falls
might have looked before the arrival
of Euro-Americans.

By 1830
there would already
have been noticeable
commercial development.

Not that I'm
especially religious,
but if you stand far enough away,
this does appear to be
some kind of Christian banner
with a big white cross down the center.

Though,
I would rather stand up close
and get lost in the dreamy foliage.

Native Americans
play an important role
in this tableaux.

There also seems to be a few
hanging out
on that distant cliff.

So, it turns out
I'm quite the Romantic,
who would much rather gaze
into this happy illusion
than face a
cold,
hard,
real
day.

(where my tiny wooden boat
is being swept upon
the relentless river rocks)

Arvid Kallstrom

2011-01-29T07:44:00.004-06:00

What a fine public monument by
Arvid Kallstrom (1893-1967).

This figure seems so
cheerful and sophisticated.

If he were a banker
he would definately
give you the loan.

And how well it sits
against
the building behind it.

Symbolizing
a well-ordered
but compassionate
society.

But also a society
where people
like to run around
with their clothes off.

They seem so comfortable
out there in the front yard.

Scandinavian countries
are just a little more comfortable
with nudity
than us North Americans.

They're cheerful about it.

And Kallstrom
comfortably moves among
a variety
of styles

What a delightful head!

But mostly
he just likes to play.

And I suppose that's why
everything he does
feels so enjoyable.

Beauford Delaney

2011-01-24T08:27:00.004-06:00

Self Portrait, 1944

This current show
at the National Portrait Gallery
included this portrait
by Beauford Delaney (1901-1979)

that led me to discover
the above self portrait
in the collection
of the Art Institute of Chicago

So, I had to
run down to the loop
and take a look at it
this weekend.

It's so much more lively in person!

(which again makes one question
why the museum doesn't present
larger reproductions on its website)

As a throwback to the Post-Impressionism
of Cezanne and Van Gogh,
as well as an African American,
Delaney barely scraped by
in his career as an artist
during his lifetime.

There's a lot of angst here,
just barely kept under control.

But it is kept under control
and so the tension
is enjoyable.

As it is with the great
jazz musicians of his time.

Doesn't he remind you
of Thelonious Monk?

Difference and Desire in American Portraiture

2011-01-22T08:42:00.009-06:00

Portrait of Frank O'Hara
by Alice Neel (1960)

HIDE/SEEK
Difference and Desire in American Portraiture
is an exhibit
currently running
at the National Portrait Gallery

and since that institution
ultimately reports
to a Congressional Committee
it is more sensitive
to political pressure
than privately owned museums.

Which has led to the controversy
so thoroughly covered by
The Washington Post

On November 30
the director of the Smithsonian
G. Wayne Clough
removed
a David Wojnarowicz video
that included a brief scene of ants
crawling over a crucifix
after the
Catholic League
asserted that it was
"designed to insult and inflict injury and assault the sensibilities of Christians"

While a defender of the piece asserts

"the artist's own hopes that the passage would speak to the suffering of his dead friend"

and

"it is smack in the middle of the great tradition of using images of
Christ to speak about the suffering of all mankind -- a long, respectable history of showing hideously grisly images of Jesus"

Romaine Brooks
self portrait, 1923

While judging from the short segment
linked above,
the video is a mangled cry of
despair, disgust, and anger
that's not worth any speculation at all.

But I think that all sides will agree
that the interpretion of the piece
is far less important
than the principle
of whether anyone
besides the curator
can have anything removed from the wall
of a national art museum.

As Philip Kennicott, cultural critic
of the Washington post,
proclaims:

"The modern museum has evolved from a straightforward display of power - this is Culture, so genuflect, ye masses - to a paradoxical place where old forms of power and discipline are harnessed to create new kinds of debate and criticism.

Museums are still supported by the wealthy and privileged, who generally acquiesce to exhibitions that aim at inclusion and diversity. The government, if it gives money, indicates its support for cultural projects while (ideally) declining to dictate message or terms to the institution. Scholarship and science still reign (or they should) but are filtered through new technologies and directed at increasingly diverse subject matter.......

The removal of the video was a tiny gesture of exclusion meant to thwart the powerful march of democratic openness that museums in general, and this exhibition in particular, exemplify."

But how do "scholarship and science"
determine
what gets shown
in an art museum?

How much of that determination
is based upon facts and argument
upon which
every reasonable person can agree?

And how much is based upon
the trends
that come and go
within the academic Humanities?

As a civil engineer,
G. Wayne Clough
is something of an outsider
to that branch of academia,
so it's not surprising
that he had no interest
in defending either the piece
or
the academic authority
that validated it.

And though politics
(here and everywhere,
liberal and conservative)
plays to ignorance and passionate folly,
it remains the only channel
for outsiders to participate
in the cultural institutions
that are supposed to serve them.

Beauford Delaney
portrait of James Baldwin, 1963

And I think
a national portrait gallery
could better serve
our nation.

In this exhibit,
for example,
a third of all the paintings
shown online
could not even be called portraits
(unless everything could)

Thomas Eakins

Charles Demuth

George Bellows

for example,
the three
wonderful paintings
shown above.

And judging from
the list
of exhibits
going back to 1996,
the National Portrait Gallery
has never had an exhibit that focuses
on portraits done by people
who specialize in portraits on demand,
in either painting
or sculpture.

And portrait painters
badly need periodic
national exhibits
that attempt to identify
their best work.

So neither
has the gallery had exhibits
that focus on
the kind of people
who usually commission
portraits of themselves,
i.e. top businessmen
and administrators.

Nor has it ever had
an exhibition
of portraits of children.

Admittedly,
this is all boring stuff
for cultural academics
who want portraits
to explore issues that concern them.

But they are only one constituency
(and a very small one),
probably no larger, say,
than Mormons.

How about an exhibit
of portraits of Mormons?

******

The idea
of having an exhibit of gays/lesbians
was a great one.

And I really appreciate
the museum bringing the above portraits
to my attention.

I've had a great time reading up
about the artists and their subjects.
(and I only wish that the museum
would have made all 140 pieces in the exhibition
available to be seen online
in nice, large digital images
like the ones shown above)

But why couldn't they stick to portraits,
instead of all the other stuff
someone considered relevant?

Including the
David Wojnarowicz video
about his dying friend Peter Hujar.

(and it's hardly been censored,
since anyone on the planet
can see it on You-Tube
in a version
that is arguably
no worse visually,
and actually much longer
than the brief segment
that was once shown
at the gallery.)

So, to turn the phrase of Philip Kennicott:

The removal of the video was a tiny gesture of exclusion
meant to challenge the hegemony
of the academic humanities
over national cultural institutions.

If only political conservatives
were serious about
taking it further.

Berthold Nebel : The Wrestlers

2011-01-15T09:00:00.011-06:00

I'm not really a fan of
Berthold Nebel (1884-1964)

He didn't do much more
than what his clients required.

But I am interested in
this youthful work,
done in 1915
while he was a fellow
at the American Academy in Rome

Influenced by Rodin and Bourdelle,
it regrettfully shows a promise
that was never fulfilled.

But since nobody has yet posted
its image to the internet,
well... here it is.

Here's another piece done
about the same time in Rome
by another fellow
in the American Academy,
Albin Polasek.

(and I also prefer it
to his later work
done in America)

And while we're looking
at male nudes
done by young Americans
in that period,
we've got the above piece
done 15 years earlier
by George Grey Barnard (1863-1938)

(though it's not a really fair comparison
since the photographer of the above
was so much kinder to his subject)

And here's best treatment
of the subject.

Antonio Pollaiolo (1429-1498)

Next to his,
most other sculptures
of wrestling men
just look lumpish.

Vicenzo Di Brossi

Especially this one.

Philippe Magnier

But this one
is elegant

What is it
about Roman/Hellenistic pieces
that is so distinctive?
(this one is dated to 1st Century BCE)

The contours are so exciting.

It crackles with energy.

This piece
could make any place
feel like a palace.

While this piece
actually was made
for a palace (in Vienna)

I get exhausted
just looking at it.

Would this one look so good
if the fountain
and palace
were not in
the picture?

There are many versions
of this tableaux,
and this is the
best one I've found so far.

It looks like
"ultimate fighting"

more like
two dancers

looks like ballet,
but I like
its elegance

Another piece of evidence
for Paul Manship
being one of the
great sculptors
of the last century.

The swirling cape
makes it so cinematic.

Are these stunt men?

This is a better phtograph
of a version of the Di Brossi piece
which has been copied
many times
(the one I first saw
was about 8" high)

feels a bit too
formulaic

This one's in
a park in Amsterdam.

It's obviously 20th C.,
but no sculptor
has been credited
with it.

Here's Nathan Rapoport's
Jacob wrestling with the Angel.

Obviously, the angel
has a significant advantage.

I LOVE Waino Aaltonen.

Fritz Behn

2011-01-02T08:16:00.009-06:00

This delightful mythological scene
got me to rediscover
Fritz Behn (1878-1970,
to whom I was first introduced
by Lorado Taft
back in 2006.

Since then,
many more pieces
have shown up on the internet.

One website notes
that his reputation has suffered
because he did work for the Nazis.

But so did Arno Breker
and thanks to Ayn Randians,
Breker has gotten a lot of attention.

This is the kind of thing
that made him popular
with the predatory creatures
who took control of Germany
in the 1930's

Behn was very good
with powerful animals

He was also very good
with expressionistic monuments

But what really attracts me
this time around
are all his portrait studies

a fine piece of pottery,
but also
a fine character study

and now it turns out
that he was doing
polychrome faces
a hundred years
before yours truly

(this one is mine)

What a wonderfully goofy face

**************************************************************
as an addendum - here's a note I got from one of the grandsons:

Mr. Miller,

I was just googling my grandfather again to see what oddities have been recently posted about him, and your blog popped up. If you're interested, I can share a lot of information with you. There's not much accurate information on the web about him, which I need to find the time to start correcting. At the moment, my father is trying to put together a two volume set about his father: his biography and then a book on his art.

I've read one rumor on the web that he did work for the Nazis, but to the best of my knowledge it was simply a government commission while the Nazis held power, if it was anything at all. The rumor that I read was that because he sculpted eagles (he did almost every animal under the sun, but was mostly known for his African animals, and specifically African cats), they concluded that he did work for the Nazis. That logic is, of course, false. It would be similar to saying an American artist is a right wing Republican simply because he sculpted an eagle. The eagle has long been a symbol of Germany, much as it's been a symbol of America, not just the Nazi party.

He was a working artist his whole life, and was actually teaching in Vienna during World War II, avoiding politics as much as possible at that point. He was NOT a member of the Nazi party.

My grandfather had worked for, and fought for, the Crown Prince of Bavaria (Prince Rupprecht) during World War I, and following World War I was a supporter of a Constitutional Monarchy (as Britain is today), as the form of government. They were known as the Royalists, and wanted Prince Rupprecht as their King. The Crown Prince feared the Communists (who actually briefly ruled Bavaria following the German Revolution in 1918), and the Crown Prince severely disliked Hitler. It was reported that he told King George V of England in 1934 that he felt that Hitler was insane. There was a glimmer of a potential opportunity to form a Constitutional Monarchy in Bavaria in 1932, as the Great Depression got worse, but then Hindenburg was forced to hand the country over to Hitler in 1933, and that, as they say, was that.

Because Hitler also feared the Communists, Hitler had wanted Rupprecht to support his initial coup attempt, but Rupprecht declined, and Hitler long blamed the Crown Prince for the failed coup, and the time he spent in jail in 1923-24 following that attempt. Rupprecht was forced to spend most of the time during World War II in hiding in Milan because of the animosity.

So that's just some of the history of my grandfather's politics of the time, which makes it easy to dismiss any claim of "working for the Nazis".

But as far as his work, yes he was incredibly prolific, and produced an amazing volume of work during his life. He graduated from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Munich in 1898, at age 20. Klee and Kandinsky were also graduates of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Munich at that time. Following graduation, he funded his own trip to Africa in 1904 where he killed all varieties of animals in order to record all of their detailed anatomical measurements. He also made plaster casts which he brought back to his studio in Munich.

He was good friends with Albert Schweitzer, and Richard Strauss (who was his neighbor at the beginning of WWII), along with Rodin later in life. He was friends with General Paul Von Lettow-Vorbeck (a famous WWI general), and was neighbors with Olaf Gulbransson.

He was also very well known for doing busts of people. He did, in addition to his friends just mentioned, Maria Calais, Pope Pious II, Mussolini, Spengler, and many more that I can't remember off the top of my head.

He also sculpted Oleander, the famous winning German race horse in the mid 1920s.

For any sculptor and artist, he's definitely one to study. He was a royally appointed Professor at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Munich before the First World War, and loved to teach art. He considered his generation to be the last of the truly classically trained artists, who learned all classic media, and learned the logistics of large stone sculpture and so on. And historically, the "Munich School" is considered to be the period from 1850 to 1914, and he was right in the middle of it, both chronologically, and physically.

He has many commissioned sculptures in public spaces around Munich (along with at least two in the Munich Zoo) and around Berlin (with three in the Berlin zoo, including Bobby the Gorilla), and in the Kurpark in Bad Durrheim. The “Egyptian Woman” which is the marble that you had a picture of in your blog is in the KurPark in Bad Durrheim. He was good friends with the founder of the Munich Zoo, Hermann von Manz, because my grandfather had just returned from his first trip to Africa when the Zoo was being launched in 1905.

In addition to his animals and busts, he also liked Greek mythology, and did a number of items on that subject. The Diana and Stag that you had a picture of is one example, where he modified the traditional subject with an African antilope and a nude Goddess Diana next to it. There’s also a marble Diana and Stag (in a more traditional style) that William Hearst commissioned from him that is next to the guest houses at Hearst Castle in California (San Simeon).

Then there’s also his whole Majolika period from the early 1910s, where he did a number of different ceramics, including Nijinsky, Koko, a woman with a fox pelt, a Pekinese, a Bulldog, and a few others that I can’t think of right now. Not his best work, but he was a working artist, and it paid.

Niels Hansen Jacobsen

2010-12-22T07:53:00.004-06:00

While surfing around
the net this week,
I stumbled accross
the above portrait.

Lots of people,
including myself,
make portraits,
but what distinguishes
Niels Hansen Jacobsen (1861-1941)
is that the above
has the unity of a ceramic pot,
and a monumental presence,
as well as
feeling ike a unique personality.

Here's another,
though regrettfully,
the subject seems
to have been indiscreet
in his collaboration
with the German occupation.

(and he looks like
he has something to hide,
doesn't he?)

Here's one of his public monuments
which demonstrates
how good monumental sculpture
can be made
from quite ordinary
subject matter

(and it has
a perfectly proportioned
pedastal)

But then,
happily,
it turns out
he also he also
turned his hand
to functional ceramics

and ceramic wild life

But my favorites
are his bizarre
horror sculpture

The above is called
"The shadow"

and this one
is the
"Troll in search of Christian Blood"

Wow.

As a troll myself
(of the internet variety)
I strongly identify
with the subject matter.

And wonderfully enough,
it was first installed
right outside a newly built
Christian church.

Regrettfully,
many parishioners
did not share
his sense of humor,
so the piece had to be moved,
and has only been restored
to its original location
in the past decade.

This one depicts
death and a young mother.

Another wonderfull piece
that probably relates
to his own experience
with sudden, unexpected
fatality.

Why did it take me so long
to discover him?

My first contact
with Danish sculpture
was with the erotic specialists
like Henning and Nielsen

Family Pictures

2010-12-21T20:10:00.006-06:00

What am I doing for the holidays?

Looking at family pictures.

My cousin Doug
has just sent me some
digital copies
of a few of the many
photos he's been taking
over the past 40 years.

As you can see from the above,
Doug has never been what you might call
a casual photographer.

**********

Above is an unusual scene
of looking at family pictures
in my grandparents' home
in Columbus, Ohio.

The old lady at the end of the table
is my beloved grandmother.

It's unusual
because the lady to the right of her
is her daughter, Ruth
who lived in California
and hardly ever came back
to the Midwest.

And the second lady from the left
is her niece, Mary Ellen, from Iowa,
whom I also never saw in Columbus.

While the lady at the far left
is my Mom,
who is dressed too formally
for an ordinary family occasion.

So I'm guessing this is about 1970,
and the occasion is
my Grandfather's funeral.

My grandmother looks
just a bit stunned.

This is my crazy Aunt Helen in the mid 1950's

The story goes
(at least as much as I can surmise)
that she had an affair with
one of her college psychology professors.

It was possibly her first romantic experience,
and in the ensuing emotional upheaval,
something about her
got too broken to get fixed.

It's Christmas Day
at her brother Andy's home,
and you may well believe
that the pile of toys on the floor
got bigger and bigger
as more children were born.

(and since my uncle
had been a car dealer,
it always included
things that had tiny motors)

I don't know
who took this photograph,
but how could it be
more poignant?

And that's crazy me
as a Hippy in 1970,
with my cousin Doug, the photographer,
cleverly snapping a picture
through the mirror,
and his father, Andy, to the right.

I haven't changed all that much
over the years.

Except that
I'm not quite so cute,
and I stopped wearing eyeglasses
and headbands.

Here's me debating with Andy.
He was really an independent thinker
with ideas about politics,
religion, and history.

It's just that ... he was always dead wrong.

Jump ahead 25 years,
and here I'm being visited in the studio
by my handsome cousin Greg
who was in Chicago to attend my wedding.

And here's my parents
who had also come up
for that occasion.

The rest of these scenes
are ten years later,
in my parents' home
on my father's 85th birthday.

The gentleman on the left
is holding forth
on some topic
of profound importance.

While his audience
at the other end of the table
is Marin, Doug's daughter,
who has just graduated
from art school.

Here's another artist's son,
Danny Leonard,
without whom
so many events
in my parents' final years in Cincinnati,
including the 85th birthday party,
would never have happened.

And this animated fellow
is my forever
little brother.

(as old as he gets
he will always be four years behind)

Here's Mom.
Behind her
is a bust of her grandaughter,
Johanna

Yang and Yin at the Ukrainian Institute

2010-12-13T10:50:00.012-06:00

What a pleasure
to enter the private space
of these young lovers

Not just the two faceless ones
appearing in the sculpture
but the married couple from Lviv
Vasyl and Svitlana Yarych,
who had this exhibit
at the Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art.

Vasyl Yarych is a sculptor
in the classic tradition
(via a Soviet art education)
i.e. he hunts for monumentality
in even the smallest pieces.

(though, ironically
he seems to have lost it
in this large monument
to King Danylo)

And, he works the classic
patriarchal Christian
and Roman themes
of European art.

(Europa and the Bull,
Judith and Holofernes, etc)

While Svitlana,
whose paintings appear
in the background above,
works that genre
traditionally
practiced by women.

I.e.,
she is basically
a fabric designer.
(even if canvas
is the fabric chosen
for the above pieces)

His work is very masculine,
hers is very feminine,
and together
they seem like
such a fine pair of young lovers.
(as might also be suggested
by these gently erotic pieces
that seem to exemplify
a relationship
that is as caring and sensitive
as it is robustly sensual.

(Even if he is 60
and she is 50
years old.)

Much of Vasyl's work
seems intended for
a public or liturgical
setting.

But the best setting
for the work
of these are two artists
is really the bedroom.

I can't recall
the work of any Chicago artists
that seems to belong there
quite so much as theirs does.

The title
of these pieces
is "Conversation"

This theme
has not appeared
in American sculpture
for over 50 years.

here's
a great version by Paul Manship.

here's one by my father.

And there's many more --
but none
have quite such
a gentle (though powerful)
bull.

This bull has been
thoroughly tamed

The hoped for result
of all this merry making

Here's some
of his religious art.

It's blockish forms
seem aimed
at the Eastern church,
and that Pieta
in the foreground
seems quite innovative.

The standing couples
are all Adam and Eve

Back to back,
they seem
quite docile, don't they?

Why would God
ever want to
throw them out of the garden?

Judith
up to her old tricks.

This Prodigal Son
needs to be done
in Ivory

This Kozak,
warrior and bard,
is the embodiment
of Ukrainian manhood.

Big chest,
small head.

Here are
some of
Svetlana's paintings

Not surprisingingly,
she is Assistant Professor
at the Lviv Academy of Arts’
Department of Clothing Design

The Raptor's Eye

2010-12-03T11:18:00.004-06:00

Imagine my surprise
to be walking out to the studio
yesterday morning
and look up to see
an enormous bird
perched
in our dying apple tree.

(alerted to his presence
by a very angry squirrel
yelling at him
from a safe distance)

I love these eyes

Here he is
in all his avian glory.

Some quick research
revealed that he is called
the "Broad-winged Hawk"
and he was winging his way
to his winter home
in Central America.

Why do we humans
feel such empathy
for these fierce birds?

Perhaps because
we are so much like them.

And here's the lunch
he was carrying
in his fearsome claw.

Lorado Taft: Civil War Generals

2010-11-14T22:08:00.003-06:00

A Large collection
of ancient Chinese bronze vessels
(Shang dynasty through Qin dynasty)
is in Chicago now,
and they
remind me of three bronze portraits
of Civil War Generals
now on display at the Chicago Public Library.

These things
felt a bit heavy-handed
to me
when I first saw them

But, they're serving
the same purpose
that those ceremonial
bronze cauldrons
served the early dynasties of China
for over a thousand years:

The celebration of earthly power,
as handed down by the sacred ancestors
from one generation to the next.

Freeman Schoolcraft

2010-11-06T10:28:00.006-05:00

Dedicated to Peace

Just discovered
this local sculptor,
Freeman Schoolcraft (1905-1983)
in the catalog
of the Chicago Vicinity Show of 1948

(the exhibition of local artists
sponsored annually by the Art Institute of Chicago
before it was discontinued
by the last director, James Wood, in the 1980's)

And since it's heavy monumentality
resembled the above figure
that my father made in 1946,
it caught my attention.

(even if it doesn't quite have the gentle swing
that R.J. put into his)

And while we're comparing things,
might as well throw in this piece
by Milton Horn
that was done
about the same time.
(and is a bit more turbulent)

As a highschool student in Jackson, Michigan,
Freeman's work was noticed by Laredo Taft
who was in town doing some monuments.

So he was encouraged to study with Taft in Chicago,
and he later got
some nice commissions
from the W.P.A.,
like the above facade
of a courthouse in Peoria.

But tastes rapidly changed in the post-war era,
and though Freeman updated his style,
it just wasn't enough to hang onto
a career in the artworld.

So, like many artists of his generation,
he ended up as a teacher,
in his case,
moving to a small state college
in Augusta, Georgia.

Here's his last piece.

He made the maquette,
and students did the rest.

He looked like an old sculptor,
didn't he ?

Two Tiepolos

2010-10-24T20:34:00.006-05:00

Lauren Viera's puff-piece about
the Richard Gray Collection
in the Chicago Tribune last week,
got me to regret
my earlier positive response.

"There's so much to see — so much good stuff to see — it's almost dizzying."

Really? I beg to differ.

But I do agree that

"Name a famous artist, any famous artist, and he or she probably has work on display at the Art Institute right this very moment."

And that's the problem with how this gallerist has both bought, sold, and collected art.

Consider the two Tiepolo drawings from this exhibit, for example.

In the world of European pen and wash drawing,
Tiepolo's floating madonnas
are the gold standard.

And the one above
shows why.

But here's the other one
from the Gray collection.

It has all of the components of the first,
but they're in a jumble,
instead of a sweet melody.

If both are authentic,
that would be of small concern
to those who collect art
as trophies or capital investments.

And that attitude
would explain the presence
of so many awkward Baroque drawings
in the Gray Collection.

The issue of collector-based
exhibitions
(as vanity shows)
has been raised several times
this year by
Reed Johnson,
Tyler Green
and Christopher Knight .

Like Steven Thompson ,
I've been inclined to defend them.

Because if I enjoy even one piece
in an exhibition,
I am grateful for the opportunity
to have seen it.

And...

it's been my experience
that professional curators
are no more likely to please me
than wealthy collectors have been.

Would the elimination of collector shows
actually increase
the number of beautiful or important
things to see?

Unless proponents of that policy
can confidently answer that question
in the afirmative,
they should think of other ways
to improve exhibition quality.

But I suspect their primary concern
is context --
i.e. the theory-based context of a curator
is preferable to the taste-based
context of a collector.

Or as one curator (Catherine Hess) put it:

""There has to be a real compelling reason to show a group of objects to the public beyond who collected them," ... "There has to be a story to be told."

And I don't really care about curator stories,
or why the things put into an exhibit
were selected,
because that does not change
how they look.

Most of the Gray collection
is worthless as far as I'm concerned.

But some of it has been quite memorable,
and I'm really doubting
that I would ever have had the chance to see them
unless
"Old Gray" had been given
this "vanity show"

The Jeff and Anna Salon

2010-10-23T13:25:00.011-05:00

The first Jeff and Anna Salon
(coinciding with the
The North Park Art Walk )
took place two weeks ago
in the radically multi-ethnic
Albany Park Neighborhood of Chicago.
(imagine a business district where
an Iraqi coffee shop is next to a Korean grocery
is next to a storefront Orthodox Jewish synagogue
is next to a storefront black pentacostal church)

All of which is next to
the Koh-Varilla Sculpture Studio.
(above are three of their pieces)

Anna is something of a community organizer.

Part of this event,
is a gathering together
of all her artist friends
into one big exhibit.

The other part,
is her getting neighbors
to do the same thing.

Rhea Eunjoo In

One of the participating organizations
was the Chicago Korean-American Art Association.

Rhea Eunjoo In is a Korean student at S.A.I.C.
(Just like Anna was 30 years ago)

Matthew Lawrence Almy

Another local organization
is the Ravenswood Atelier

Mathew Lawrence Almy

What delicious dust!

Joshua Klegerman

Christie Michelle Stewart

(she's listed as one the students,
but I think she already knows more
than many teachers)

Craig Blietz

And then there was the
Chicago Art Salon ,
a group of artists
who share some of the same interests.

Gail Potocki

Vincent Hawkins

And finally,
here's the Jeff and Anna Salon,
comprising the somewhat motley crew
of artists she has chosen as friends
here in Chicago.

Vincent Hawkins
is well known among local sculptors
for his Fire Arts Center
where you, too, can cast your own bronze.

"Cain and Abel"

Michael Ruhack
has sometimes assisted
Jeff and Anna
on their commissions.

Lois and Keith Raub

have proven that artists
actually can live with each other
for more than a few months.

Kerry Brooks

I'm not sure how Anna
met this young artist

Her drawings are incredible,
but you do need
a magnifying glass
to appreciate them.

Harry Sudman

These girls
look good
against the aluminum doors

Elizabeth Ockwell

Recently retired from the S.A.I.C.
where she taught drawing
for many years

Eldon Danhausen

Eldon was the sculpture teacher
at the S.A.I.C.
back when I first met Jeff and Anna.

Unfortunately, he was
not able to attend this event
(except in spirit)

Dennis Paul

Dennis was a Danhausen student, as well.

I prefer to see his work
close up.

David Abed

Finally,
we get to my favorite,
Andrew Conklin.

His drawing and design are so delicious.

And he is so distant
from the
Chicago-ugly-figure-school.

Beautiful people
in beautiful places.

Why are images of that
so hard to find?

I think I prefer
still-lifes of antique silver
and ceramics.

But if somebody has to paint
a laptop computer,
I'm glad that Andy volunteered.

Helen Oh

Helen is Andrew's wife,
and she specializes in
finely drawn
sea shells.

And finally, finally,
here's the wall
hung with my pieces.

Left to right:

*Birth of Venus

*In the Garden

*Mars and Venus Heaving in the Iron Net
that Limping Vulcan and His Cyclops Set.

********

(note: a full list of participating artists
is shown here )

Fall Antiques Fair : 2010

2010-10-03T09:09:00.007-05:00

Antiques Fairs
remind us
of the plethora of human productivity.

It's impossible to study it all,
so my mind focuses down
to just one question:

Does it feel big?

And, on this afternoon,
about the only things that did
were the early Chinese ceramic figures.

Though, given that culture's attitude
toward authenticity and enterpreneurism,
I'd be surprised if everything on display
had been accurately dated.

This could be a Han Dynasty dog.
Whatever.
It sure looks strong.

what a charming scene!

this guy seems familiar,
I may have shot him
at an earlier show.

Shirley M. Jackson
1922 - 2007

Here's a Chicago painter
who should have joined my art club.

Shirley M. Jackson

Not quite beautiful enough,
but still feels good.

Gail Sherman Corbett
(1871-1952)

As it turns out,
I singled out a painting
by this student of St. Gaudens
in the Fall Antiques Fair of 2008.

So, I guess I like her.

Though, I'm definately a sucker
for snowy days in big cities

Francis Chapin

Another one of his
scenes from Saugatuck, Michigan,
where Chicago artists went to play.

He seems a little tipsy
on this bright sunny day.

Walter Krawiec
(1889-1982)

Here's some details
from a few of his circus studies.

I've seen many good plein air paintings
over the past few years,
but nobody throws in figures and animals
as well as this Chicago painter did.

I suppose you can tell that
he was a professional cartoonist,
but still,
his sharp characterizations
do not defeat
the feeling of the entire space.

Roger L. Weston Wing of Japanese Art

2010-09-27T08:53:00.011-05:00

Perhaps I'll calm down
in a few months,
but the only word
I can find for the new
Roger L. Weston Wing
of Japanese art
at the Art Institute of Chicago
is
Disaster

And I could kick myself
for not photo-documenting
the display that it replaces.

Perhaps it's only sentimentality
that attaches me to the
quiet, meditative space that
the museum's collection of
Medieval Japanese sculpture
used to inhabit.

But I think that Cleo Nichols,
who designed the space in 1992,
successfully solved the problems
involved in displaying a diverse collection
of Buddhist sculpture
that originated in many different
centuries and temples,
and cramming it all into a small,
but aesthetically pleasing space.

The key, I think,
was letting one statue sit freely
on a platform in the center of the room
protected by a railing instead of a glass case,
allowing it to command the space of the room;
then setting the other sculptures into
glass protected niches set into the
surrounding walls;
and leaving the whole room dark,
with dramatic lighting on each statue.

Now,
as you can see at the top,
the pieces have been set into
glass display cases that protrude into the room,
making the entire display
feel like those cases
of ethnic paraphernalia
that used to be found
in the Field Museum of Natural History
(back before they updated their displays)

The sense of sacred space is gone.

And the room feels dry, dead, and clinical.

(though maybe that's O.K.
for displaying the pre-Buddhist
tomb effigies that are shown above.
After all, those pieces were made for a crypt,
not a shrine)

Thankfully,
they mostly left the Ando Gallery alone,
except that even there
they damaged it
by removing the heavy glass doors
that used to seal it off and make it feel
like such a quiet, secluded place,
that was part of Japan
instead part of an art museum.

What was the head designer,
Kulapat Yantrasast,
thinking about
as he made these woeful changes?

And as final slap
in the face
of anyone who enjoys
the rest of Asian art,
the Chinese painting and Korean ceramics
that used to be located in this area
have been removed,
while announcing that:

“The movement of several collections into the Modern
Wing last year has allowed us to better demonstrate our commitment to the arts of Asia by reworking existing galleries and creating new galleries for their display"

A statement which would only come true
if some of that new space
were ever used to display the Asian art
that was taken off view
to make room for the Japanese.

But I think that
no more new space is left.

It's all been taken
by the new galleries
of African and Pre-Columbian art.

Shibata Zeshin

But now that I've vented my disappointment,
here's some of the good stuff
that has been put on display here
for the very first time.

Much of it coming from the collection
of Roger L. Weston.

Ogata Korin

I was a bit surprised that
both Korin and Zeshin,
are also known for their paintings.

Nishikawa Sukenobu
1716

This was my favorite.

Kensai Eisen,
1830

Katsukawa Shunsho

Bunsai Eishi,
1800

Utamaro

I have a hard time believing
that Utamaro really painted this one.

Unless he was 13 years old.

But, indeed, the label says it was done
in 1805-6,
the last year of his life,
when the artist was
in his early fifties.

Maybe he was ill.

Bizen Ware
Sake bottle. 17th Century

Here's a very enjoyable ceramic
from Weston's collection,
and there were also some
new pieces of pre-Buddhist sculpture,
purchased with his donations.

Given his generosity,
proven and anticipated,
it made sense to give the Japanese collection
much more floor space.

But I'm doubting the Chinese collection
will ever get its space back,
at least until the museum
builds another wing
in another 50 years or so.

And Chinese civilization is the sun
for which Japanese
is a distant, even if incredibly beautiful,
moon.

This is the first time
that bamboo baskets
have made it onto permanent display.

Here's a key
to determine
who made what.

They're all 20th Century

There's also room now
for a case
of tea ceremony ceramics

as you can see,
some are recent,
and some date back
to the 16th Century

left: Raku ware tea bowl with design of descending geese, 18th/19th C.
right: tea bowl by Raku Ryonyu, 1756-1834

Tea Bowl by Kato Shuntai
1799-1878

Think about me kindly when I'm gone

2010-08-24T10:26:00.010-05:00

Thanks to the perepatetic Sir G,
a number of good photos
of the paintings
from the tomb of Nabamun
can now be found on the internet.

Nebamun apparently lived about 1500 B.C.
which would have made him a contemporary
of Queen Hatshepsut
whose memorial statuary
is so prominent in the Met

But, compared to Hatshepsut,
Nebamun was small fry --
just a scribe/accountant
who pocketed enough to afford
to build his own tomb,
even if it was a small one.

Here is a photo
that shows the modest size
of the paintings.

So how big was the tomb?
Perhaps the size of
a walk-in closet?

(BTW, the above photo was taken
by a wonderful blogger, who specializes in Egyptology)

So, one might suppose
that Nebamun could not have hired
the Jasper John or Lucian Freud
of his day.

(Though the London Times speculates
that he hired a big-shot who was moonlighting
from his work on the Pharoah's temple.

Because.... who but a great artist
could make great art?)

And, ever since it first appeared
in the British Museum in 1829,
art lovers have unanamously recognized
these lively paintings
to be great art.

So, how wonderful
that the museum
just spent 10 years
and lotsa money
giving them a
thorough restoration.

As the London Times reports:

"In the Natural History Museum they have spent thousands of pounds on an animatronic T Rex that tries to do the same thing for their dinosaurs. It amounts to little more than a fairground entertainment. The British Museum, instead, has invested in a highly sophisticated restoration that, lasting almost a decade, is probably the biggest project of its type yet undertaken. It must be commended for this decision. These wall paintings, spaciously displayed among cabinets of artefacts from the same period, bring Ancient Egypt to life far more fascinatingly than any animatronic mummy ever could. "

Is this paradise,
or what?

According to some scholars,
the tombs in this period
were left open
for people to visit
and admire the deceased
who would be eternally surrounded
by scenes from his happy life.

and this is the sort
of eternal company
that would keep me happy, indeed.

Swinging musicians
and beautiful young, naked dancers.

Back in the late 19th C.
wealthy Americans
also had the happy idea
of building magnificent tombs
so that posterity would admire them.

Alas!

Today,
they just leave
the fruits of their labor
to the Art Museum
to demonstrate
artworld sophistication.

Robert Johnson at the DuSable Museum

2010-08-23T09:28:00.003-05:00

As Philip Kennicott opines here ,
perhaps the hey-day of ethnic museums is passing.

Victim of the great American melting pot.

Chicago has quite a few of them,
the best one being
the National Museum of Mexican Art
which regularly has good exhibits
of both historical and contemporary
Mexican art.

Coming in second,
would have to be the
Ukrainian Institue of Modern Art
which doggedly sticks to an East European Modernism
even as Post-Modernism
has pushed it into history.

Despite, or perhaps because of
their tragic 20th C. history,
East Europeans still seem to desire an art
that inspires and delights them.

Third, would be the

Spertus Museum
which occasionally
has had a good show,
although funding cuts have taken their toll,
and the excellent permanent collection
has been demoted to a
"grandma's attic" kind of display.

Beyond that,
the other institutions
would best be called
"community centers"
offering auditoriums,
meeting halls,
and occasional exhibits.

Which is where the
DuSable Museum of African American History
fits in.

It's got a permanent display
of African art,
but the pieces are so weak,
and the lighting is so poor,
it's really no better
than its animatron Harold Washington
that blinks its eyes and dips its head
in a theme-park reconstruction
of the late mayor's
office at city hall.

I suppose the Mexican museum
is the most vibrant
because that community is so filled
with recent immigrants
and still keeps its
native language and customs.

But there's a good reason
to keep these ethnic museums going
even after assimilation has taken place.

Namely, that they can offer
a positive alternative
to the norms of the contemporary art world,
and exhibit many good artists
who focus more on life issues
than on contemporary art theory.

A case in point,
being the statue of Dusable
show above.

The sculptor was Robert Johnson,
about whom absolutely nothing else
is available on the internet.

He made this piece back in the 70's.

The museum's bizarre restrictions on photography
required me to shoot the piece
from about 40 feet away.

(thank goodness for my wide angle lens
and motion correction feature)

Hopefully,
some day,
the Dusable Museum
will show more of that sculptor's work,
and other African American artists as well.

Ludka's Museum

2010-08-01T20:06:00.028-05:00

As you can see
Ludka was a seriously beautiful Czech girl

(Can you tell
that she was professional dancer?)

... and she still is beautiful
even in this ghostly image
reflected by one of the paintings
in her collection.

This might serve
as portrait of her as well

These are the tools of her trade.
She's been a top tier
piano teacher
in the Chicago area
for several decades now.

During which time
she has managed to acquire
this wonderful house
and stuff it full of eye candy.

Zugmas Brazis

Our tour should probably begin
with her favorite sculpture

and here's another one
perched in a tree
in the back yard

BTW,
she's also a gardener
(as well as a world traveler )

She says the garden
has been somewhat neglected this year

But I prefer
the "jungle look"
myself

at the top,
is the veranda
on which
we have often been entertained

Walking around the side of the house
is this little fellow
who fell off the wall

Now we're on the front porch.

This little fragment
was found abandoned in the kiln room
at the Palette and Chisel Academy.

The head is also an abandoned piece,
while the small figures
were made by a romantic Frenchman
who passed through Chicago
a few years ago

And this strange figure

was made by yours truly

Mark Chatterly

The stained glass windows
were designed and fabricated
by the lady herself.

(who also makes jewelry )

Now we're on the inside,
and we'll be walking counter-clockwise
through the building

Jade (from trip to China)

Martina

Though I can identify this one:

myself

(from trip to Lhasa)

some very nice historical pieces

(from trip to Guatemala, near Tikal)

Lecoque, plates are Czech, sculpture by Jan Zlebek

Alois Lecoque and Groeger

Jan Zlebek, painting by Vladimir Ovtcharov (Bulgaria)

As I recall,
these were painted
for Ludka's father
by a fellow prisoner.
(Czech officers spent
a lot of time in prisons,
first Nazi, then Communist)

Indonesia (left), Namibia (right)

another piece by yours truly

Mathurin Moreau (France)

John Freda (Evanston, Il)

This is my favorite corner

Lubos Vojkuvka (Czech)

Petr Zlamal (Czech, from Ludka's home town)

Kostka (top), Russell Maier (bottom), sculpture by Erte

and I love all her glass

Light is by Ludka, inspired by a tall Chicago building in the clouds

Jiri Solc (Czech)

Zimbabawe

Indonesia

Belize

This is in the bedroom.

There were several paintings
there also,
but I couldn't photograph them
through the reflective glass.

Milos Koutecky (Czech)

This is a portrait of her son
done at least 30 years ago.

She's sorry that it was done
from a photograph,
but it looks pretty good to me.

And once again,
the lady herself
as a young woman.

As you can see,
she is an out-of-control
aesthete,
making, collecting, displaying
whatever resonates with her.

Might we say
that her entire house,
is a work of art
just like a Cornell box ?

Only, it's much more
bright and beautiful.