SOLIDQUALITY

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.