SOLIDQUALITY

I have always known of Francis Bacon and his work but I must say I never really allowed myself to truly take it in until now. The Met in NYC has a retrospective of his work marking the 100th anniversary of his birth. The exhibit contains over a 130 pieces spanning his entire career.

I guess for me it his use of color that really struck me. Typically, I felt like most of his paintings were these dark anomalies and in some ways muddy. And there are moments int he exhibit that the work felt like that, but remarkably the moments were few and far between. Rather than muddy monochromatic chaos I found a very focused use of form and color. So focused that there really aren’t any artist before or after that ave come close to his style. (I guess I use the word style here loosely.)

The bodies and forms are distorted, with a quick glance might seem like careless abstractions. But each is very well thought out and the strokes perfectly placed to create  and build the form. A way of deconstructing it while simultaneously constructing it. Perhaps there are sketches and perhaps internal formulas that guided him, a language. But like a language, concepts are conveyed and the system carries a weight, an authority that really make the paintings something more, art.

And the colors! It is true you can’t really appreciate the  light without the dark and vice versa. The very graphic nature of the paintings of dark set against rich vibrant colors. reminds me of Lautrec’s poster art.

I would highly recommend the show, but try to go during a time of day with less people. You really need to sit with the work. Read the lines. Absorb the colors and get lost. It is a dark muddy world, but if you have the right eyes it will always seem bright.

For the 50th anniversary of the Guggenheim Museum building in New York, they have mounted an exhibit about Frank Lloyd Wright. The exhibit includes many of his famous buildings but also many lessor known unbuilt concepts. To make these unbuilt ideas come to life they have created these great models an in some instances creating animations using elements of Wright’s original drawings.

Two things struck me about this show. Actually three. Maybe four.

One is that the show does a pretty good job of making the work come alive. The models are great. The animations go a long way for those less spatially savvy to understand the scale and movement through and around a building. Job well done there.

Two is how crazy some of his ideas were. Crazy is the wrong word. I guess whimsical. They feel like movie sets for far off lands. Perhaps many set designers have stolen from his vocabulary. His idea for an aquarium with spherical tanks that you can walk underneath. Very cool.

Three, how intricate his design were. So much details in the patterns he developed to decorate the outside and inside of his buildings. That Tokyo Hotel was insane. Such detail, just thinking of drawing it out seems like an accomplishment never mind thinking it up.

Four. Why don’t we use his design for the Mile High Tower at the new World Trade Center?

I guess that is it. Go see it, it lasts to the end of August.

Claes is an artist who’s work has always struck me. Often these big plush, flaccid everyday objects. What was he thinking? What was he trying to do? Why didn’t he fit the other artists of the time? Or was not fitting in, fitting in?

I will always remember his hanging electric mixer. All his objects really look like the originals they are meant to represent, but some how transferred by a magic raygun into softer, bendable versions.

This show at the Whitney is a good introduction to his work. Some prime examples are the Fries pictured above and the entire music room collection of instruments. And finally the ice bag. Off on a room by itself, heaving as if some bastard of a hot-air lawn Santa. What should one think? Totally wonder struck. Freezing your thoughts and suspending that loud social cloud. Definitely a cure for a weak moment in history of art.

Hear the artist talk about his work in this great NY Times interactive tour of the work.

The Jenny Holzer exhibit at the Whitney, Protect Protect, has closed but I was able to catch it and several other good shows. I will write about those in seperate posts.

I half liked this show. It was made up of what I see as two parts even though they may have been related. One part was a set of her LED word art sculptures. And they were fabulous. Well, I would say I didn’t care mouch to read them. I’m not sure why, but I always appreciated her displays, but not really the content. Perhaps it is the visual designer in me that loves the look but feels a disconnect from the content.

The second part was some paintings and enlargements of declassified document around the Iraq and Afghan war. Some specifically about the war prisoners abuse. Very topical and very important issues. I just didn’t want this political debate to mess up my visual experience. I’m not saying art can’t have meaning, I guess I just felt like, the content was exploited for its relevance and once I felt that way I couldn’t take it serious anymore. Thus receding to only appreciate the visual nature of her signs.

You can see a video overview of the exhibit here.

Two weeks ago I saw the Alexander Calder: The Paris Years 1926-1933. It was the same weekend I saw the photo exhibits at the Museum of the City of NY. Well the difference is stark. Even though the the work was both monochromatic, the energy that came from Calder’s work was electric. And you can see the play, the joy and the thinking that went into each peice. The type of thinking and believing in oneself that becomes unconscious around ctions seemed predestined they feel so right. How else could someone make a prolific mechanical circus with such detail and precision. The gestural nature of the his wire drawings and that is realy what they are. Drawings. Frozen in time. But still breathing every second as if we just watched them been drawn by the artist, over and over again. Something I should take note for myself.

And his early kinetic work. I love the early mobile that is perfect balanced to have its counterweight move in perpetual motion while hitting perfectly placed objects, such as a can, bottle, or wooden box. Do I enjoy art that reveals to me the joy of creating it? Sounds like I’m romanticizing it. But having had the feeling of creating some art, perhaps I enjoy art that makes me nostalgic for myself. Can you fell loss for things that never took place.

And finally as I mentioned above. The crazy circus. Part of feels like this wasn’t never meant to be art, but true play. Meant for those who only wanted to play and perhaps feel that emotion without thinking about it. As look t the peices and see the video of it in action you become entralled by the mechanics, the inventiviness and perhaps the childlike spectacle which make syou play long by guessing what circus character will come up next. And when they do make an appearances, trying to persuppose the motin before it occurs, only to be completely pleasantly foiled to feel and see something that wasn’t in your imagination.

Not sure why I was so philosophical above. Enjoy!

So, over the last weekend I made a visit to the City Museum of NY and saw two interesting photo exhibits.

The first is titled Eudora Welty in New York: Photographs of the Early 1930s. It is a recreation of the her first solo exhibit held in 1936 at the Photographic Galleries of Lugene Opticians in New York City. In addition they also include photos she took of NYC. Many are anonymous portraits that capture the mood of the 30′s in each location. The poor sharecroppers of the south and the brooding streets of NY.

The second exhibit captures the South Bronx at their height of deterioration from 1982-1984. Entitled Broken Glass: Photographs of the South Bronx by Ray Mortenson, its a fairly compact but intense show. Alot of photos lined up right next to eachother kind giving you a relentless view of the endless abandoned buildings. Every where you look a very different and stunning view. I imagine it must have been similar to being in the neighborhood in the 1980s. Destruction in every direction. There are a lot of interesting plays with scale and dimension where the black white phtoos really flatten out even though they are depicting 3D spaces.