Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Nürnberg museums 2 -- New Museum of Art and Design
My favorite museum in Nürnberg was the Neues Museum, aka New Museum for Art and Design. The design exhibits were fascinating – this one showed how different chairs affected the sitter’s body – but I was in search of ART and didn’t linger.
The art part of the museum started with photography. A wonderful installation by Hans-Peter Feldmann, called 100 Jahre (100 Years), had photos of 100 people, ranging in age from 1 to 100. Each photo was identified by the sitter’s first name and age. I scrutinized every photo, wishing the top rows were more accessible through my bifocals.
There were three whole rooms full of photos by Bernd and Hilla Becher, who traveled around Europe in the 60s and 70s documenting old industrial buildings. They liked to group their pictures into categories so you could see which features were common to the process and which varied from one site to another. I had seen and loved their work at Dia/Beacon in Beacon NY and this huge collection was exciting.
These are water towers.
Then I came around a corner and it was as though the volume turned up a dozen notches – this was a room full of Gerhard Richter, one of my favorite artists. Richter is known for the wide variety of painting styles he’s used over the years, and if you want to be floored by the sheer number and vast range of his work, spend some time on his website, especially the section called “Atlas.”
Gerhard Richter, Abstraktes Bild, (Abstract Picture) 1991
Gerhard Richter, Ausschnitt (Detail) 1971
Gerhard Richter, Stadtbild PL, (City Picture PL) 1970
But not just Richter; they had all the big names in German contemporary art. The Kiefer was a surprise -- instead of the dark battlefields of his best known pictures, this one was a pastel confection, easy on the eyes. I think I like the dark and bloody grounds better.
Anselm Kiefer, Traigo todas las Indias in mi mano 2, (I carry all the Indies in my hand) 2001
Georg Baselitz, Der Freund (The Friend), 1988
I wound up my visit in the bookstore, which despite having mainly books in German, could have easily sucked up hundreds and hundreds of euros. But we were on foot with miles to go before we got home, and I wisely (but sadly) passed it by.
The art part of the museum started with photography. A wonderful installation by Hans-Peter Feldmann, called 100 Jahre (100 Years), had photos of 100 people, ranging in age from 1 to 100. Each photo was identified by the sitter’s first name and age. I scrutinized every photo, wishing the top rows were more accessible through my bifocals.
There were three whole rooms full of photos by Bernd and Hilla Becher, who traveled around Europe in the 60s and 70s documenting old industrial buildings. They liked to group their pictures into categories so you could see which features were common to the process and which varied from one site to another. I had seen and loved their work at Dia/Beacon in Beacon NY and this huge collection was exciting.
Then I came around a corner and it was as though the volume turned up a dozen notches – this was a room full of Gerhard Richter, one of my favorite artists. Richter is known for the wide variety of painting styles he’s used over the years, and if you want to be floored by the sheer number and vast range of his work, spend some time on his website, especially the section called “Atlas.”
But not just Richter; they had all the big names in German contemporary art. The Kiefer was a surprise -- instead of the dark battlefields of his best known pictures, this one was a pastel confection, easy on the eyes. I think I like the dark and bloody grounds better.
Georg Baselitz, Der Freund (The Friend), 1988
I wound up my visit in the bookstore, which despite having mainly books in German, could have easily sucked up hundreds and hundreds of euros. But we were on foot with miles to go before we got home, and I wisely (but sadly) passed it by.
Monday, October 18, 2010
Who knew these guys were fiber artists?
It has always amused me that Real Artists (aka painters and sculptors and those with MFAs from Yale) can use fabric in their work without critical repercussion, while we middle-aged ladies who have been known to make quilts are relegated to the lowest circles of Art Hell. So I am frequently moved to take pictures of fabric in museums, and I don't mean canvas. Just my little way of saying "see, using fabric doesn't automatically turn artists into wimps and sissies."
Here are a bunch of fabric sightings from my recent museum visits in Germany.
Robert Rauschenberg, Mine, 1984 (with detail) -- the big piece of fabric with the little thread work is smack in the center of the canvas
Anselm Kiefer, Lilith am Roten Meer (Lilith at the Red Sea), 1990 (with detail) -- actual garments with paint or medium over them
Joseph Beuys, Osiris, 1970-79 -- pieces of felt affixed to a support
Michael Buthe, Stoffbild (Fabric Picture), 1969
(with detail)
Here are a bunch of fabric sightings from my recent museum visits in Germany.
Michael Buthe, Stoffbild (Fabric Picture), 1969
(with detail)
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Subway art
When we visited Berlin this summer we were on foot, an intelligent way to travel in a city with superb public transportation. One of the pleasant side benefits of getting around so easily was enjoying the art on the subway platforms. It was all permanent, executed in tile, and rather than having each station look like the others with generic art, there was a wide variety of styles and moods. Here's a sampling:
Saturday, October 16, 2010
Art-A-Day
ART or NOT ART????
I wrote recently about a book I’ve just read by Elissa Auther, “String Felt Thread: The Hierarchy of Art and Craft in American Art.” She had some provocative things to say about the big quilt hoohah in the 1970s, which started with the exhibit at the Whitney Museum of American Art. Quilt collectors Jonathan Holstein and Gail van der Hoof had been buying up old quilts for a long time, and managed to promote a show in which they were presented as abstract art.
The pieced quilts in the Whitney show and a similar show of Navajo blankets in London three years later created the kind of gee-whiz bombshell that we witnessed more recently with the Gees Bend quilts. Critics were flabbergasted to see that these generally anonymous weavers and quilters had produced – well, we might even call it – – – ART!! (And to think that many of them were women, making it even more astonishing!!!!!)
I think that all of us who make quilts as art have profound ambivalence about these blockbuster shows. On the one hand, it’s nice to see quilts hanging on the walls of big museums, pulling in the viewers and being regarded as ART. On the other hand, why are the critics so damn surprised that quilts can be – ART? Why can’t the critics show up at any of the other shows featuring quilts or other things made of fiber and say some nice things about them too? Why do they always preface their remarks with patronizing back-handed compliments?
It wasn’t till I read Auther’s book, however, that I realized the major on-the-other-hand about the Whitney or the Gees Bend shows. Namely, the quilts are so highly regarded not because they’re wonderful quilts but because they look so much like paintings.
She writes that the Whitney show, “in both its selection of pieced quilts and their installation on the wall, complemented current trends in abstract painting, granting quilts a new aesthetic status as high art by virtue of their perceived likeness to” paintings.
Auther quotes a “feminist quilt scholar,” Patricia Mainardi, who riffs on these same themes: “although the sexist and racist art world will, if forced, include token artists, they will never allow them to expand the definition of art, but will include only those whose work can be used to rubber-stamp already established white male art styles. Because… pieced quilts bear a superficial resemblance to the work of contemporary formalist artists such as Stella, Noland and Newman… male curators and critics are now capable of ‘seeing’ the art in them. But the applique quilts, which current male artists have not chosen to imitate, are therefore just written off as inferior art.”
Mainardi continues, “throughout his catalog essays… Holstein praises pieced quilts with the words ‘strong,’ ‘bold,’ vigorous,’ bravado,’ and ‘toughness,’ while he dismisses the applique quilts as ‘pretty,’ ‘elegant,’ ‘beautiful’ but ‘decorative.’ This is exactly the kind of phallic criticism women artists are sick of hearing.”
I can’t help but cheer Mainardi on, but must admit to a frisson or two of something that might resemble guilt. I much prefer pieced quilts over applique. And I strive for my own quilts to be ‘strong,’ ‘bold’ and ‘tough’ rather than ‘pretty’ or ‘beautiful.’ So does that make me a phallic pig? Sure hope not. I’m going to contemplate that issue and write again after I’ve sorted out my own thoughts. Meanwhile, what do you think?
girly, pretty, NOT ART
masculine, bold, strong, ART
The pieced quilts in the Whitney show and a similar show of Navajo blankets in London three years later created the kind of gee-whiz bombshell that we witnessed more recently with the Gees Bend quilts. Critics were flabbergasted to see that these generally anonymous weavers and quilters had produced – well, we might even call it – – – ART!! (And to think that many of them were women, making it even more astonishing!!!!!)
I think that all of us who make quilts as art have profound ambivalence about these blockbuster shows. On the one hand, it’s nice to see quilts hanging on the walls of big museums, pulling in the viewers and being regarded as ART. On the other hand, why are the critics so damn surprised that quilts can be – ART? Why can’t the critics show up at any of the other shows featuring quilts or other things made of fiber and say some nice things about them too? Why do they always preface their remarks with patronizing back-handed compliments?
It wasn’t till I read Auther’s book, however, that I realized the major on-the-other-hand about the Whitney or the Gees Bend shows. Namely, the quilts are so highly regarded not because they’re wonderful quilts but because they look so much like paintings.
She writes that the Whitney show, “in both its selection of pieced quilts and their installation on the wall, complemented current trends in abstract painting, granting quilts a new aesthetic status as high art by virtue of their perceived likeness to” paintings.
Auther quotes a “feminist quilt scholar,” Patricia Mainardi, who riffs on these same themes: “although the sexist and racist art world will, if forced, include token artists, they will never allow them to expand the definition of art, but will include only those whose work can be used to rubber-stamp already established white male art styles. Because… pieced quilts bear a superficial resemblance to the work of contemporary formalist artists such as Stella, Noland and Newman… male curators and critics are now capable of ‘seeing’ the art in them. But the applique quilts, which current male artists have not chosen to imitate, are therefore just written off as inferior art.”
Mainardi continues, “throughout his catalog essays… Holstein praises pieced quilts with the words ‘strong,’ ‘bold,’ vigorous,’ bravado,’ and ‘toughness,’ while he dismisses the applique quilts as ‘pretty,’ ‘elegant,’ ‘beautiful’ but ‘decorative.’ This is exactly the kind of phallic criticism women artists are sick of hearing.”
I can’t help but cheer Mainardi on, but must admit to a frisson or two of something that might resemble guilt. I much prefer pieced quilts over applique. And I strive for my own quilts to be ‘strong,’ ‘bold’ and ‘tough’ rather than ‘pretty’ or ‘beautiful.’ So does that make me a phallic pig? Sure hope not. I’m going to contemplate that issue and write again after I’ve sorted out my own thoughts. Meanwhile, what do you think?
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