Artists

Ai Weiwei’s Mute Witnesses

This is the second of two Posts about Ai Weiwei’s 4 recent concurrent NYC shows. Part One, about Ai Weiwei: Laundromat, at Deitch Projects, may be found here. This piece is on the other 3 shows. 

Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava.

Show Seen: Ai Weiwei: 2016: Roots and Branches, Lisson Gallery, Chelsea

If there’s one thing I think NYC needs many more of, it’s trees. Given the extremely high rate of tree deaths here1, it’s always great when new ones show up. Even transiently. Ai Weiwei temporarily added to our tree population in 2 of his 4 shows, as only he could. Though it’s been over for nearly a month as I write this, I continue to think about this show every day, only partially due to the meditative properties of trees.

Lisson Gallery, December, 2016, nicely nestled under the High Line. Click any photo to see it full size.

Walking into the long rectangular space of Lisson Gallery on West 24th Street in Chelsea during “Ai Weiwei: 2016 Roots and Branches,” you’re confronted by a “forest” of 9 massive tree parts (3 measure almost 16 feet each) situated among 4 newly exposed and equally massive columns for the High Line, which runs directly above the gallery’s ceiling. Along the seemingly endless right hand (western) wall, 16 rows of black and white graphic images fill it’s wallpaper. The other 2 walls remains stark white (the 4th wall being the doors). Natural light streams in from both sides of the long ceiling as if there really were a canopy of leaves and branches above the “trees” allowing only some sunlight in.

A “Zen Garden” of the beauty, and horror, man can create. 7 of the 9 sculptures are seen, or partially seen, along with a partial view of the wallpaper, right.

But, these tree parts show no signs of life, the ones that “stand” only do so due to placement. Or, is it dis-placement?

Though their arrangement invites walking around them and viewing them from all sides, a relevatory experience in itself…

9 views of the same piece- Iron Root, 2015. Seen larger, below-

it is viewing them from one angle in particular- directly behind, that one gains a unique perspective. Standing behind them (to their east, that is) you see them with the wallpaper behind them. The effect struck me as making them “mute witnesses” to the seemingly endless spectacle unfolding on the wall. The saga unfolding therein is about war and displacement. The displacement of countless thousands of refugees due to the war in Syria.

A view of just about all of the 200 x 25 feet (my estimate) of wallpaper.

The wallpaper is also designed to be looked at every bit as closely as the tree parts are.

A close-up. You’re not alone if you think you’re looking at real tree bark. Then again? I never get out of Manhattan. This is cast iron.

So encouraged, I returned again and again, continually seeing something “else” so often that after 15 visits, I stopped counting. The first thing that’s striking is it’s all in black and white. Looking a bit closer you note the poses, the lack of detail, and even some of the outfits call to mind the Ancient Greek Vases I’ve seen often at The Met, which is fitting since Idomeni, home of the camp in Ai Weiwei’s Laundromat, is in Greece.

About a third of the wallpaper. Each row seems to have it’s own theme.

There’s a lot to see. A detail of 12 of 16 rows in this section.

From bottom- 2 rows of the refugees in flight- by boat, by foot, by vehicle, while the third row depicts the reasons why. In the 4th row from the bottom, Ancient Greek soldiers march on the left, while their modern counterparts march to the right of the fighting animals. Directly above them in Row 5, Ai Weiwei’s iconic extended arm and middle finger looms as a repeating circular motif, which will appear again. To the left in Row 5, a backhoe picks up the clothes left by the refugees in the Idomeni Camp that would become the clothes in Ai Weiwei’s show, Laundromat.

Looking even closer, I realized that some of the motifs recur, except in the very middle! There, in what musicians call “the golden section,” some fascinating images appear. They include Michelangelo’s Vatican Pieta, and a variant of the image of Nour Al Khzam, the 24 year old Syrian woman refugee who Ai Weiwei had a piano brought to the Idomeni Camp for, (as I wrote about, and Posted a photo of, in Part 1)! We see her playing the piano, while others (including Ai Weiwei himself, seen from the back) hold up a plastic sheet to protect her from the rain that day. Yet, in the wallpaper, we don’t see rain. So? Perhaps they are protecting her from everything else that’s going on. Is this Ai Weiwei’s way of speaking about the value of protecting your creativity, no matter what’s going on around you? Or, protecting what’s most important to you? Or, does it speak to overcoming all over this and having a life after, like Ai Weiwei, himself did?

The wallpaper’s “Golden Section,” (the darkened center section) features Nour Al Khzam right smack dab in the middle of the entire 200 foot piece (rows 6 & 12). Also notice Michelangelo’s Vatican Pieta, just to the left of center in rows 3, 9 and 15. Elsewhere we see a huge explosion (rows 4, 10, 16) and a baby, perhaps abandoned, under trees (rows 1, 7 and 13).

A singular image. A close-up of the image of 24 year old Nour Al Khzam playing piano as Ai Weiwei (right) and others hold a plastic sheet over her. A photo of the event is here.

I was left to ask my friends, the trees.

If you were careful, you could stand inside the semi-circular Iron Tree Trunk, 2015. It felt like a hug.

I felt a terrible pang when this show ended on December 23, and I’ve missed it daily since.

Outside Lisson Gallery on December 26, “Iron Tree Trunk,” 2015, and a piece of the wallpaper still barely visible on the right. My tears are not shown.

Why?

Partially, it’s the beauty of these “trees.” They are contemporary sculpture at it’s finest, in my opinion. I could look at them endlessly. Partially it’s the wallpaper has sucked me in to trying to understand it’s every detail. Real trees spend their entire lives in one place. Something humans can’t imagine doing. Trees have been meditative objects for a thousand years in Zen Buddhism and elsewhere. They are that, here, as well. These “tree parts” were created from parts of dead trees brought down from the mountains of southern China and sold in the markets of Jingdezhen, Jiangxi province, where Ai Weiwei found them and brought them to his studio.

Maybe the show reminds me of life in NYC, where the few trees we have stand alone as all the chaos and activity of this insanely busy City happens around them. Perhaps, Ai Weiwei, who lived here for 10 years, intends this. Perhaps not. But this is no story of City life unfolding up there, with each of those 16 bands telling a different part of it simultaneously, perhaps symbolizing that these events were happening to so many people simultaneously, each making their own journey, and each with their own experiences and story. It’s a story that begins with the horrors of war and it’s various instruments (including Ai’s trademark surveillance cameras), followed by the long, treacherous journeys, of (too) many refugees, to lands unknown, their lives in the camps, a story that, unfortunately, continues for who knows how many. Here we come face to face with man- at his best, as when he is creating Art, and at his worst, when he is killing and ruining the lives of countless innocents, who have no one to turn to for help. Taken as a whole, Ai Weiwei has created one of the most unique Zen-like “Gardens” ever seen. One that offers almost as much to ponder as a “real” Zen Garden.

Ai Weiwei: 2016: Roots and Branches, Mary Boone Gallery, Chelsea

The new LEGO triple self portrait, Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn, a LEGO version of his well-known work of the same name from 1995, is seen in the background. Better view and details below-

Ai “was so much older then, he’s younger than that now.” And, “playing” with toys. Sorry, Bob. Ai Weiwei as seen in his recent LEGO version of his work, Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn, 1995

Besides Laundromat (the only show of the 4 with a different title), Ai Weiwei’s three other NYC shows, Ai Weiwei 2016: Roots and Branches, eshewed the use of his most renowned media- the internet, photography and words (seen to devastating effect in “Laundromat”) to focus on two other of his “signature” mediums- natural elements and ancient artifacts along with one newer medium- LEGO portraits, originally inspired by his son, who constantly plays with them. His LEGO works were previously seen in, perhaps, his most political show to date- Ai Weiwei: @Large, which took place at none other than the former site of one of the world’s most notorious prisons, Alcatraz. Ironically, Ai Weiwei, himself, was not able to attend that show as he was still living out the rest of his sentence following his 81 days of imprisonment, that saw him unable to travel internationally (because his passport was still held). At Alcratraz, the work, Trace, consisted of LEGO portraits of 176 people from around the world who have been imprisoned or exiled because of their beliefs or affiliations,” according to the show’s press release. This time, the LEGO Portraits on view at Mary Boone Gallery, Chelsea (a few hundred feet west of the Lisson Gallery show), were confined to Self Portraits. These were juxtaposed with two works in wood- both “sculptural,” and both “puzzles” in their own way, while, again, one wall was lined with gorgeous, fascinating wallpaper, this time in gold.

Tree at Mary Boone Gallery, Chelsea

In the main room, facing the LEGO triple self portrait seen above, a Tree was, again, the centerpiece, This time it’s one, monumental Tree, 25 feet tall, that is constructed of actual weathered sections of dead trees that, according to the press release, “may be seen as a comment on the strength of modern China built from many ancient ethnic groups, or a determined attempt to create something new and vital from what is irrevocably lost.” In China, dead trees are venerated as important counterparts to the dead on earth, the realm between heaven and the underworld.2 It stands in front of another monumental wallpaper piece, this one I believe titled “Golden Age,” another graphic tour de force. This work is based on images from AWW’s life- from the ever present surveillance cameras, police chains and handcuffs, to cats- all depicted in a lustrous 3-D gold. For me, it stands for overcoming oppression and turning it’s artifacts into beautiful objects that are, now, just another part of his life, like his beloved cats.

Golden Age, detail, and reflection.

Situated on center stage, here, Tree, is, seemingly, another work that speaks to modern China being a blend of many ethnic groups, like Map of China is, see further down. That the parts making it are dead, as is the whole construction, of course, is something I cannot offer a comment about. I can say that I find it a compelling idea, and object, and one that some of it’s base parts seemed to bear a resemblance to the Iron Roots seen at Lisson.

Also on view here was the amazing Treasure Box, a sculptural piece of furniture made of ancient reclaimed huali wood, which is actually an intricate puzzle box of sliding and locking components3

Ancient & Contemporary puzzles. Treasure Box, sits in front of Self-Portrait, made of LEGO bricks.

This is, surely, an aspect of Weiwei’s work that, while not by any means new, deserves more attention and study. The Mary Boone, Chelsea show struck me as being “about” things not being what they seem. Being “more,” perhaps, and being “other.” There’s still one more show left to see…

Ai Weiwei: 2016: Roots and Branches, Mary Boone Gallery, Uptown

40,000 spouts broken from antique Chinese porcelain teapots are surrounded by Finger Wallpaper.

The final show, at Mary Boone’s Uptown Gallery may be his comment on all of this.

Detail of the spouts

Finger Wallpaper, and detail-

Yes, a variant of this wallpaper, too, is available, here.

As the world has seen these past 6+ years since his “Sunflower Seeds” Show at Tate Modern, London, brought him to international renown in 2010, Ai Weiwei is a man with a strong conscience. He’s not shy to share it with the world, whenever, and wherever he sees things that bother him. While it’s tempting to say that he’s turning his attention away from China after his arrest and 81 day imprisonment in 2011, he said to the Council on Foreign Relations in November–

“When I fight human rights in China, I never think that’s human rights in China. I think that’s human rights everywhere. That’s first. And also, when I’m dealing with situation outside of China, I don’t even think that it’s not going to help China, you know? Human rights is the value which I believe is universal, it relate to everybody.”

Garbage Container, an elegy to five homeless boys who suffocated in a dumpster while trying to stay warm.

Summing up…

The meditative effect of all four shows was the common takeaway for me, vastly different from the meditative effect of Mark Rothko: Dark Palette, a few hundred feet away from Ai Weiwei’s 2 Chelsea shows. While Rothko’s meditative impact is almost otherworldly, akin to standing in a door way open to…?, Ai Weiwei has us meditate on life, presence and absence, having roots and being rootless, what it is to be human, and what it should be to be human.

Speaking of “being human,” it almost looks like a hand. Or, maybe an extended arm and extended…hmmm…

For me, the shows seemed to flow into each other from south to north, beginning with Laundromat, the southern most, in Soho, to Lisson on West 24th, to Mary Boone, Chelsea, further west on 24th, and finally up to Mary Boone uptown. I have no idea if this was the intention, or not.  The Lisson show carries pieces of Laundromat, while the Mary Boone, Chelsea, shares the “tree” motif of Lisson, and Mary Boone uptown shares Ai Weiwei’s trademark extended arm and extended middle finger motif with Mary Boone, Chelsea, though it now is the overriding motif. It’s hard, for me, not to see this as Ai Weiwei extending his middle finger (and that of 39,999 refugees), now, to the “powers that be,” that have created and largely ignored this refugee crisis, while seemingly having little solution for the crisis to come. But? Your results may differ. Everyone is free to take from it what they will, or leave without taking anything from it. In this case, that would be a shame, and might be shortsighted. If it’s not “personal” for you now, it might be one day. There…but by grace, go I.

Golden Age, Detail. You, too, can hang (a variant) of this on your wall, here.

Of course, Ai Weiwei is not the only Artist who was a refugee. The 20th Century, for instance, is full of them. Some of them, like Marc Chagall, and the great composer Bela Bartok, created works of nostalgia for their homelands, not documentary works about being exiled. Then, there is Picasso, who created “Guernica,” in 1937, about the tragic bombing of that small Spanish town in his homeland, while he was living in Paris, where he would remain throughout the Nazi occupation that began a few years later, through the end of the Second World War, and after, in continuing exile from Spain. Perhaps the greatest artistic record of exile we have was created by a “young girl,”- Annelies, better known as Anne, Frank, the brilliant young writer who’s life ended at 15 at the hands of the Nazis, but who managed to write for the ages about her exile in her own country before she was discovered, and arrested in her “Diary of a Young Girl,” which has sold 30 million copies to date. While Ai Weiwei depicts, and documents, the Syrian Refugee crisis, he has only, as yet (as far as I know), documented his own exile in words. He’s spoken about it in interviews, and written about it in Ai Weiwei’s Blog. His words are chilling, unforgettable, and impossible for me to get out of my mind when I visited these shows. About the “earthen pit” his family lived in when he was 8 years old he said –

“…when pigs would run overhead, their bottoms would fall through our roof, making us all too familiar with the sight of swine nether regions….on one occasion, because there was no light in our earthen pit, my father was descending into our home and smashed his head on a roof beam. He fell immediately to the earth on his knees with a bleeding forehead. Because of this, we dug out a shovel’s depth of dirt, an equivalent to raising our roof twenty centimeters (about 8 inches).”4

While his mediums keep expanding (LEGO portraits), others, especially his sculpture and “furniture,” continue to evolve in wonderful ways. Yet no matter what he does, or what he creates with, his heart, mind, passion, and humanity- his core values, come through loud and clear. Not being one who’s given to compare creative beings, I still find it hard to think that this decade, that still has 3 years to go, is the decade of any other Artist. This is Ai Weiwei’s decade.

Like son, like father. Ai Weiwei says he was inspired by his son’s passion for LEGO to try them himself.

As this decade has unfolded, I find he reminds me of someone else. Another man from the East, who has lived in exile for a very long time. A man with a deep knowledge of the West, a man of compassion, wisdom and humanity. The Dalai Lama. One has written a book called The Art of Happiness, the other has done more than most others to bring compassion to those suffering, through Art. I make no comparison of them. I am simply saying that one brings the other to mind. In any event, there is no doubt that Ai Weiwei has gone from being an exile to being an unknown Artist and Art Student in New York for a decade to now having the eye, and ear, of a good part of the world. In doing so, am I alone in feeling that what he espouses about human rights and freedom sounds a good deal like what passed for “traditional American values” for most of my life?

A detail of the above. LEGO refused a bulk order from Ai Weiwei last year, which resulted in a furor that led to the company reversing themselves.

Artistically, these shows raised another question for me.

Even now, very rarely do I see his work on view in the museums here. Right now, The Met lists zero works of his in their online database of over 700,000 items (about 1/3 of their total holdings)! I do recall seeing 5 works of his displayed during the Ink Art: Past as Present in Contemporary China. Show there in 2014., including the one I photographed, below. It turns out that all five were lent to The Met. MoMA lists 12 of his works out of their 73,000 items currently online. Of those 12, 7 are photographs with his extended middle finger at various locations, 4 are books, and one is a magazine! I have to say I find it shameful that there is no major work of his in either The Met or MoMA! I would love for either, or both, to tell me why not.

Ai Weiwei at The Met! Map of China, 2006, a work that speaks to the mosaic of fragments that is China today, made from wood salvaged from destroyed temples, as seen (on loan) in the Ink Art in China Show in 2014.

While we see the results of uprooting in both it’s natural and unnatural ways, at Lisson, Ai Weiwei turns uprooting into creative acts in using the felled tree parts as the basis for his sculptures and the travails of the refugees who’s journeys he shows us in “Laundromat” into what he depicts so beautifully on Lisson’s western wall, in trying to give them a voice, and make their experiences known. During my daily visits, I, and many of my fellow visitors, stood looking at, and contemplating, the complex images that seemed to stretch out endlessly before us on that wall. Like the lines of refugees must have looked like in transit. When I was alone in the gallery, I was like the the cast iron trees before me standing as “mute witnesses” to what was going on in front of us on the wallpaper.

Now that this unique show that was equal parts horror show, and equal parts astonishingly beautiful- depicting the best, and worst of what man is capable of, is over, it’s up to all of those who saw it to not remain mute.

Since Ai Weiwei lived in New York for 10 years? In my book, he will always be a New Yorker.

Welcome home, Ai Weiwei. Come back soon.

*-Soundtrack for this Post is “Subterranean Homesick Alien,” by Thom Yorke, Jonny Greenwood, Phil Selway, Ed O’Brien and Colin Greeenwood of Radiohead, as performed on OK Computer.

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  1. In my 25 years of living here, I’ve come to believe this is part of the reason for so many tree deaths. Not all of it. Part. ↩
  2. https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/article/ai-weiwei-6 ↩
  3. It can be seen opened in the Royal Academy, London’s Ai Weiwei Exhibition catalog. ↩
  4. Ai Weiwei’s Blog, P. 53 ↩

Ai Weiwei & The Value of One Refugee

Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava

Ai Weiwei returned to show his latest work in NYC for the first time since getting his passport back, making a splash to rival his last big show here (which he could not attend), the retrospective “Ai Weiwei: According To What?” (at the Brooklyn Museum in 2014), this time with no less than FOUR concurrent shows- one in Soho, two in Chelsea and one Uptown. With so much terrain to traverse, and with so much to see, it makes sense to adapt my approach to writing about them, so I’m going to cover the 4 shows over 2 Posts, as follows-

Ai Weiwei: 2016 Roots & Branches @Mary Boone Gallery, Chelsea
Ai Weiwei: 2016 Roots & Branches @Mary Boone Gallery, Uptown and
Ai Weiwei: 2016 Roots & Branches @Lisson Gallery, Chelsea in a second Post, here.
Ai Weiwei: Laundromat @Deitch Projects, Soho will be the subject of this one.

Ai Weiwei: Laundromat–

Deitch Projects. Also seen in this site’s Banner.

Of the 4 shows, the centerpiece has to be Laundromat at Deitch Projects, an unprecedented Art show/installation, unlike anything I’ve encountered.

View just inside the front door. Click any image to see the full size photo.


Along with an upcoming documentary film, it’s part of the Artist’s response to the Syrian Refugee Crisis as experienced by the estimated 18,000 (at it’s peak) in the refugee camp at Idomeni, in Northern Greece, on the Macedonian border.



Ai Weiwei said-
“When we started filming in Idomeni, the first thing we noticed was people trying to change their clothes. These are the clothes they wore from Syria, wet and soiled from the difficult journey across the ocean, over mountains and through woods. They had no chance to wash their clothes until they were forced to stop in Idomeni. They would hand wash the clothes and throw it on the border fence to dry. There was nowhere else to hang dry their laundry. We photographed the clothes, but we did not, and could not, imagine they could later be included in an exhibition. The clothes were some of the few possessions they could take when they decided to leave their homes. There is not much else they could take. Off the coast of Lesbos, I found an abandoned boat drifting in the sea. Inside, I found a copy of the Bible and a baby’s bottle. You would also find small objects wash up on the shore. These objects were the most precious things a person could have, the last things they brought with them as they sought a new life.”

Merry Christmas

“Once the refugees were forced to evacuate to different camps from Idomeni, many of those possessions were left behind. Trucks came in and loaded these items up to take towards the landfill. I decided to see if we could buy or collect them so they would not be destroyed. Previously, my studio collected many life jackets from the local officials in Lesbos and made an installation with them at the Berlin Konzerthaus. My team negotiated with local officials who agreed to let us have the collected material. They were aware of our presence and were supportive. With a truckload of those materials, including thousands of blankets, clothes and shoes, all impossibly dirty, we transported them to my studio in Berlin. There, we carefully washed the clothes and shoes, piece by piece. Each article of clothing was washed, dried, ironed, and then recorded. Our work was the same as that of a laundromat.”1

Every item is hand tagged. These read “Baby Rompers.”

While Downtown New Yorkers are no strangers to acts of war and terrorism, catastrophic weather or blackouts2, one of the strange things about living through those events, for me, was that many people in other parts of the City, who were directly unaffected by them, lived in a certain level of oblivion about them. Many seemed completely disconnected from what was going on right in their own City. It can be easy to understand when you look at this, from the Hurricane Sandy blackout, which effected me, and all of downtown New York for 5 days to 2 weeks.  Now? At “Laundromat,” I was the “directly unaffected,” I had never heard of Idomeni, Greece, and knew little about the Syrian Civil War that’s led to 13.6 million refugees3 seeking to rebuild their lives elsewhere. That’s equal to the population of London. During my 5 visits to  it was easy to say now what others may have said about the Sandy Blackout- life gets to be so all-encompassing that few of us really know what’s going on in much of the City, let alone the rest of the world. It’s different when it’s personal.

I’m sure there are those who walked in and thought “This is Art? It looks like the Salvation Army.” I know what they mean. But? Yes, I consider this to be Art, and I consider it to be groundbreaking Art. Laundromat’s range of expression is formidable. Ai Weiwei is the master Artist of the electronic information age. Recently named “The Most Influential Photographer of the Past 10 Years” by complex.com (Cindy Sherman placed 13th, Annie Liebovitz 8th, and Sebastio Salgado didn’t place.? Yet, another reason I don’t believe in qualitatively comparing Artists.). Weiwei’s Blog was, perhaps, the first “essential” Blog of the 2000’s, before it was forcibly removed. Part of it has been translated and published and is still in print.4 Mr. Ai became the first Artist to have photographs “go viral” with his now infamous shot in the elevator with police after his arrest in 2009. Now, he has combined mediums (thousands of photographs, an excerpt from his upcoming documentary film and hundreds of internet articles and social media postings), with actual objects- the clothes and shoes left by the refugees in the camp. The clothes hang on racks. Washed, ironed and/or cleaned, they are “ready-to-wear,” tagged by hand and sorted by type, sex and age, near hundreds of shoes aligned in neat rows on the floor- about an equal number of matching pairs and singles. The shoes are of every kind imaginable, except high heels. (I saw only one pair with a very low heel.) Boots, low boots, sneakers dominate. I assume because their owner’s felt they were finished with crossing wet terrains or bodies of water. Both are present in mute witness to what they have seen and experienced.
What their wearers have experienced can never be washed away that easily. Many are, no doubt, still going through the experience of being a refugee and seeking an answer.

“Time to recharge my batteries” this shirt reads.

A Sea of Words. Hundreds of news and web postings seen in the “Newsfeed” section of the show, which fills the floor beneath visitor’s feet.

Laundromat is a deeply personal show for Ai Weiwei. On a number of levels. First, he seems to just naturally respond to humans in crisis, all over the world, be they individuals in the case of the Feminist Activist Ye Haiyan, as we saw in Brooklyn, in Ye Haiyan’s Belongings,  in 2013 (which recreated that photo verbatim, installing all of her belongings in a gallery in the Brooklyn Museum(!), something of a possibly precursor to this show), or his powerful documentary Stay Home, about the Aids activist  Liu Ximei, or by trying to put names and identity to the countless thousands lost in the 2008 Sichuan Earthquake, the subject of Backpack pieces Remembering, 2009, installed in Germany, and “Snake Ceiling” (seen in Brooklyn) as well as the monumental work Straight, 2008-12, which consists of 40 tons of rebar from the Sichuan quake that Ai recovered and straightened, It was powerfully displayed alongside the list-turned-wall paper, Names of the Student Earthquake Victims Found by the Citizen’s Investigation, 2008-11, in Brooklyn, photos of which I posted here. The amount of work he, his staff and volunteers put in to try and identify the dead children was nothing less than monumental. Laundromat is only the latest “piece” in Ai’s ongoing “work” regarding human rights. It, too, is monumental, in more ways than one.

I’m left to wonder- If he didn’t do this, who would? Would anyone?

First learning about this refugee crisis in 2015, after being freed from jail, but still unable to leave China, he dispatched two members of his staff to go see the camps and interview refugees. Once he got his passport back, he travelled to Germany, where he could get a much closer look at what was going on. Then he decided to go to Idomeni, and document it. “Laundromat” is the first result of those efforts. The documentary film, Human Flow, is next, scheduled to be released in 2017.

The second level of this being personal for Ai Weiwei is that he, himself, lived in exile for TWENTY YEARS! And? They began when he was an infant, in 1957.

He says-
“When I was born, my father (the great poet and intellectual), Ai Qing, was denounced as a ‘rightist’ and was criticized as an enemy of the party and the people. We were sent to a labour camp in a remote region far away from our home and so began 20 years in hard exile, which saw my father clean bathrooms and the family live in an earthen pit5.” This was after Ai Qing had been a friend of Chairman Mao (Ai Weiwei has spoken about handwritten letters from Mao being in their home), and had served as a representative of the Chinese government. “We carried almost nothing with us to the camp, only trying to survive. It was an extremely difficult time being seen as a foreigner in your own nation, an enemy of your own people, an enemy of those my father loved most. I know what it is like to be viewed as a pariah, as sub-human, as a threat and danger to society.”1. When the exile ended in 1976, and Ai Qing and his family returned to Beijing, many of his father’s readers had assumed he had died. Before he was all that he is today, Ai Weiwei grew up a refugee.
Now, he has turned the latest refugee crisis, coming after what the New York Times called “The Century of Refugees,” into a work of Art, giving voices to all of those who have not been heard. It’s impossible to walk through these clothes and shoes and not feel their presence- that there was a person for every single article here- especially the babies. Though cleaned, evidence of personal wear remains that is permanent, along with what is permanent, though now invisible- the experiences each of these items, and the person wearing them went through. You wonder “Did someone really make this trip wearing thong sandals?” You see many well-known famous brand names, like Adidas, famous images and icons, as well, including “Hello, Kitty,” even “Barbie.”
The clothes look like clothes you could see being sold right down the street, though many of the labels are unfamiliar (a classic way New Yorkers identify tourists), yet so much of what’s here is so common- everywhere in the commercialized world. and not all that different from the jeans t-shirt, sneakers and jacket I’m wearing standing among them. Though, of course, it’s very hard to consider the Idomeni Camp part of the “civilized world,” especially when you read accounts of it, like this one from International Women’s Rights Journalist, Jina Moore.
What are  you going to wear if your house catches fire and burns, or, you have to leave town, or state, or country…in a real emergency, or war?
A story could be told for each item here. Mr. Ai could have made a show with one item, and it would have been quite powerful, but it wouldn’t have been this show. As you walk among the clothes, or around the shoes, look at the thousands of photos on three of the 4 walls, and the hundreds of internet articles and posts on the floor beneath your feet, it is easy to become numb to the numbers, but the little bits of individuality each item retains reminds you of a more finite realm of experience. This is a group made up of people. Of individuals, like you, and me. 1+1+1+…= 18,000.


In the midst of ALL of this, the sea of humanity (not to mention the actual Seas surrounding Greece they crossed), the incredible hardships, suffering and deaths, there was one small part of this story, and this show, I found particularly interesting & revealing, though nothing about it is mentioned in the show itself! I only learned about it through doing my research. Ai Weiwei came across a 24 year old Syrian refugee named Nour Al Khzam, who’s photo I spotted (above) among the thousands on the walls, who is from Deirez Zor, Syria. She was trying to get to Germany to reunite with her husband. Before fleeing Syria she had been studying piano. Ai Weiwei arranged for a piano to be brought to the Idomei Camp so she could play it, as seen in the photos immediately above. I know he’ll be criticized for doing this, but I find it poignent because it speaks to a number of important things, including- going on with your life and realizing your creativity, even after being a refugee (which Ai Weiwei, himself did). It also speaks to something very important- What is the value of one refugee? How many great Artists, maybe an Ai Weiwei, great Scientists, or great people are among these refugees?

This image, above (Photo by Matt Cardy/Getty Images) of Ai Weiwei, right, helping to hold a plastic sheet while Ms. Al Khzam’s plays in the rain that day is of particular importance, as we shall see next time. (Note- This photo was not included in the show.)
Though Idomeni is half a world away, there was a beautiful piece of New York City included in this show. Among the materials handed out at Deitch was a sheet containing September on Jessore Road, by “New York’s Poet,” as Ai Weiwei calls his friend, Allen Ginsberg, written after Ginsberg had visited the Bangladeshi refugee camps in 1971. Allen Ginsberg had come to know Ai Qing during a trip to Beijing. And with it, AWW adds poetry to the list of mediums included in this show.
Having lived through a few events that might have made me a refugee (the Hurricane Sandy blackout left me without means of getting off of Manhattan, except on foot), the inescapable feeling of Laundromat was “There, but by grace, go I.” If anything defines the 20th Century as much as the airplane, space flight, electricity and the atomic bomb, it’s the refugee. More of them were created in one century than at any time in world history.
“I cannot give them food or tea, or money, but rather I can let their voices be heard and recognized. I can give them a platform to be acknowledged, to testify that they are human beings. During the saddest moments in our history, mankind has had to prove their worth as humans to their own kind. Unfortunately, this has proven to be the most difficult task. As an artist, this is something I would like to take on1.”
Ai Weiwei reminds us here that in this new millennium we have yet to find a way to deal with this world wide question.

There- but by grace, go I.

“He wants to see how far an individual’s power can go,” Chen Danquing, a Chinese painter and social critic said in the Nw Yorker’s profile of Ai Weiwei in 20108.  Ai Weiwei doesn’t help all of people directly, as he said, that’s not within his means. Yet he, in the way he lives his life, and in his work, stands for freedom- Artistic freedom and human rights. He, and his work, continually remind us of the primacy of human rights in ways that are unique, powerful and unforgettable. As for an “individual’s power?” The more of his work I see, the more I read his words, and the more I see of his compassion and soul, I’ve come to believe that Ai Weiwei is one of the most important human beings of our time. He has become something of the “conscience” of the Art world. If not the world, itself.

As big a statement as that is, even beyond it, no one can leave this show without remembering that here is a man who has accomplished so very much in the world after he, himself, lived in exile as a refugee in his own country for 20 years (not to mention everything else he has had to overcome). Though he wasn’t able to help them all financially, etc. I think he understated the impact he may have had on them.

Ai Weiwei at the Idomeni Camp.

As much as every item in Laundromat speaks for those with no voice, Ai Weiwei, the man, is living proof a refugee can survive, overcome, and make a lasting mark on the world. I have a feeling his mere presence in Idomeni served to remind at least some of those he encountered of that, and possibly gave them hope. How do you put a value on that? Of course he chose to avoid mention of any such thing when he commented on what he could and couldn’t do for them.

I don’t have to.

*-Soundtrack for this Post is “The Unknown,” by Acrassicauda, a heavy-metal band from Baghdad, themselves exiled by the Iraqi War, and the subject of the documentary Heavy Metal in Baghdad. I had the honor to meet and hang out with Tony Aziz, their lead guitarist, in 2011, shortly after the band finally made it to the United States. Talk about overcoming, and continuing to follow your  dream…

(PS- Oh yeah…I still have THREE more Ai Weiwei shows to see…)

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  1. Deitch Projects Interview, 2016. ↩
  2. Hurricane Sandy caused a partial evacuation ↩
  3. According to the UN., 6.4 million have fled the country. An additional 7.2 million are displaced within Syria. ↩
  4. It may be the most essential book on Ai Weiwei, along with the Taschen monograph, which, though published in April, 2016, is already slightly dated as his career continually evolves. Perhaps the best way to stay current with Ai Weiwei is on his Instagram page. But, be forewarned- he almost never captions his photos there, like he does not for the thousands of them in this show. ↩
  5. Ai Weiwei’s Blog, P.53 ↩
  6. Deitch Projects Interview, 2016. ↩
  7. Deitch Projects Interview, 2016. ↩
  8. May 24, 2010 ↩

Art In The Subways Is Great, But The Big Question Looms

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Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava.

As the 100 years in the making Second Avenue Subway prepares to open it’s first segment on New Year’s Day, 2017, various media outlets not named NightHawkNYC.com were given a sneak-peak preview of the Art that has been, and is being, installed in the stations. I probably was sleeping, anyways.

I haven’t been sleeping, however, when it comes to appreciating the extraordinary “track” record (sorry) of the MTA’s Arts for Transit when it comes to choosing Artists and Art work for the Subway system since the 1980’s. Led by Director Sandra Bloodworth, they’ve done a job that deserves the thanks of all New Yorkers.

You can’t get there from here. Al Held’s “Passing Through,” Mosaic, 2004. Seen at the Lexington Avenue/53rd Street Station in 2015. Just one example of the MTA’s Arts for Transit’s superb choices.

Now, with the likes of Chuck Close, Sarah Sze, Vik Muniz and others, the 4 new stations on the 2nd Avenue Line (actually, an extension of the Q Line), will be aesthetic sites to behold, as you can see here, in the Times, and here. I note Cecily Brown, who occupied a bar stool adjacent to me a few years back, with her beau, is among Close’s portraits, now “immortalized,” or, at least, extremely hard to destroy.

Subway Star in the making, the great Chuck Close, who I ran into at the opening for “Ali Silverstein: To Put on the Edge, a Table,” on October 27 at Albertz Benda, is seen discussing her work with Ms. Silverstein.

While this is great news for my fellow masstransiteers, it leaves the biggest question looming. Actually, the 2 biggest questions-

What about Penn Station?
What about the Port Authority Bus Terminal?

BOTH of these need to be replaced, as I said. NOW! Will they be works of Art to equal the new PATH Station at the World Trade Center, which I called a Cathedral after my opening day visit?

While I laud the choices of Artists, Art Works and Medium1, what the MTA, City, State, and possibly Federal Agencies decides to do about Penn Station (and to a far, far lesser extent MSG, which currently sits on top of it), and the Port Authority are the two biggest urban design questions currently facing Manhattan.

Will we be lauding their decisions as supremely functional works of Art? Or will we continue to loathe every second we have to spend in either station?

I prefer to dream of what the possibilities are because we’ve already lived the nightmare for too long. But, my fears are still running a little bit ahead.

NighthawkNYC.com has been entirely self-funded & ad-free for over 8 years, during which 300 full length pieces have been published! If you’ve found it worthwhile, PLEASE donate to allow me to continue below. Thank you, Kenn.

You can also support it by buying Art, Art & Photography books, and Music from my collection! Art & Books may be found here. Music here and here. 

Written & photographed by Kenn Sava for nighthawknyc.com unless otherwise credited. To send comments, thoughts, feedback or propositions click here. Click the white box on the upper right for the archives or to search them. Subscribe to be notified of new Posts below. Your information will be used for no other purpose.

  1. Mosiac is THE perfect choice, as Michelangelo himself once said- it will outlive ALL of us! If you want to see what I mean, there are mosaics from Ancient Rome in The Met that still look great! ↩

About Banner #4…

Banner #4

which finds the Nighthawk Downtown outside of Deitch Projects, along the cobblestones of 18 Wooster Street, currently the home of Ai Weiwei’s “Laundromat,” which can be glimpsed through the larger window. I’ve been busy making the rounds of the no less than FOUR Ai Weiwei shows currently up. All 4 shows close on December 23.

Hurry!

In the meantime, here’s a Post from early on that reminisces about my visits to Ai’s last big NYC Show, 2014’s “Ai Weiwei: According To What?” at the Brooklyn Museum.

(More soon.)

 

NoteWorthy Shows- November, 2016

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Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava (*- unless otherwise credited)

Things are reaching a fever pitch in the Galleries as the year end approaches, with nary a Black Friday Gallery sale in sight, allowing me to sleep in this year. Still, there was plenty to see and be Thankful for, along with the usual smattering of turkeys, but let’s get right to dessert, shall we? As in October, here’s my list, in no particular order, of what I found NoteWorthy in November. Once again, each one of these deserves a longer, in depth piece that I’m not going to have time to do, but I would be remiss in not mentioning them at all. November, also, marked the end of the world as we know it, so…

The world looks different…Brian Dettmer’s Western Civilizations 3, 2016. A “Book Sculpture.” More below.

Faberge from the Matilda Geddings Gray Foundation Collection @ The Met- Will the artist in modern history who is a greater craftsman than Carl Faberge please stand up and make yourself known to me? Thank you. While I’m waiting on that, this is the first show of the work of Faberge in New York since 2004. As small as one of the details on his timeless (and priceless) masterpieces, this show in a hallway at The Met is easy to miss (countless thousands do just that as they wait in line for the elevator to the roof, right in front of this very show). Ms Gray began collecting Faberge in 1933, when prices for his work were cheaper than they will ever be again. Money aside, Faberge combines the equally rare gifts of ingenuity, vision, craftsmanship and delight in works that are a century old but have lost none of their grace, beauty or charm. Scheduled to end on November 27, this show has been extended until 2021, giving you plenty of time to see it.

Imperial Lillies of the Fields Basket, 1896, Yellow & green gold, silver, nephrite, pearl, rose-cut diamond. This is considered THE most important Faberge piece in the USA. It was presented to the wife of Czar Nicholas at her visit to the Pan-Russian Exposition in 1896. This is only 7 1/2  x 8 1/2 inches!

Imperial Napoleonic Egg, 1912, gold, enamel, rose-cut diamond, platinum, ivory, gouache, velvet, silk. One of the infamous “Faberge Eggs,” this was presented by the Czar to his wife for Easter, 1912. Designed to commemorate the 100th Anniv of victory over Napoleon. This is 4 5/8 inches tall! The inside is solid gold, and holds…

a six-panel screen depicting paintings of six regiments she was an honorary colonel in.

Description in next photo. Click any photo in this Blog to see it larger.

Imperial Caucasus Egg, for Easter, 1893. This is 3 1/2 inches high!

Easy to miss, this is the whole show!

Joan Mitchell: Drawing Into Painting @ Cheim Read- Yet another good sized show of an Abstract Expressionist, “second generation” this time, and the most renowned female (Lee Krasner may be gaining on her) AbEx painter, right down the street from the blockbuster Mark Rothko: Dark Passage Show, it makes the perfect before or after bookend to it. I owned a Joan Mitchell print until a few years ago, so I lived with the energy and lyricism her work is known for. Looking around, her work is in most major museums, though it’s been 12 years since an American museum gave her a show. So, it’s been left to Cheim & Read to fill the gaps, and they’ve mounted Joan Mitchell shows every two years, or so, going back to the late 1990’s. This one does make for fascinating pairing with the Rothko show- they couldn’t be more different, while sharing what the scholars call Abstract Expressionism, I’ve heard some of the Artists, including Philip Guston, say they prefer the term “New York School.”

UNTITLED, 1958, oil on canvas

LA GRANDE VALLEE XVI POUR IVA, 1983, oil on canvas

UNTITLED, 1982. oil on canvas

Man Ray: Continued and Noticed @ Francis Naumann- It’s been too long between Man Ray shows. Readers already know my fondness for Man Ray. Francis Naumann Gallery opened 15 years ago with a Man Ray show, so they revisited him for this anniversary show and they did it in style. Man Ray was so prolific, and so prolifically diverse he can be hard to “sum up” in a gallery show, but this one was an out and out winner, a must see, especially for anyone who thinks of Ray as “only” a ground breaking photographer. While featuring a wonderful selection of his photos, portraits and “Ray-o-grams,” it also included his drawing, painting, sculpture, writing, and even no less than 2 Ray designed chess sets.

Paletteable, 1969

The great Man (Ray). Self-Portrait, 1948. A card under speaks of his concerns in his early work- “1) a defiance of artistic convention replaced by steadfast commitment to absolute freedom in the arts.” That says it all.

…and seen again. Autoportrait, 1917/70, Screen print on plexiglass. Really? Hmmm…

…and again. Self Portrait, 1914

Yes, that’s one of the chess sets Man Ray designed to the left of the chair.

Lampshade, center, surrounded by an astounding range of creativity.

Philip Guston: Laughter in the Dark, Drawings from 1971  & 1975 @ Hauser & Wirth- There was no more auspiciously timed show than this one which not only brings us the 73 drawings Philip Guston selected for his Poor Richard series but 100 additional drawings that didn’t make the cut and 3 wonderful paintings that are related or have relevance to them. Opening exactly 4 months after Hauser’s last Guston show, it would be very very hard to find work more different than those in seen in Philip Guston Painter, 1957-67, which I wrote about here, perhaps the “darkest” of his career, in many ways. Though the show’s title refers to the presence of “laughter” here, make no mistake it is more than tinged with darkness, especially because viewing them now, we know how things turned out for Nixon. These were dark times for the country, and many of these drawings were Guston’s “at the moment” reaction to unfolding events. Even before Watergate, the Nixon Presidency was not without a sizable opposition, for more reasons than the seemingly endless war in Vietnam. Everything about Nixon rubbed many people the wrong way, and provided a brilliant Artist ample fodder for “political satire” of the highest order. Most interestingly, for me, these are works in which Guston turns his focus outwards for, perhaps, the only time in his post 1940’s career. Poor Richard was published in 2001 and is still in print. You can see it here.

The 73 drawings that Guston selected for Poor Richard are shown, here (and below), together.

Title Page. Guston Depicts Nixon with VP Spiro Agnew (triangular skull), Attorney General John Mitchell (with his pipe) and Advisor Henry Kissenger (as glasses) as the cast of characters

Guston’s series begins with young Richard Nixon.

Jeff Elrod: This Brutal World @ Luhring Augustine- Chelsea & Brooklyn Galleries. It pains me not to write a longer piece on this. Jeff Elrod has been at the cusp of reinventing painting by combining digital drawing and computers with the end result of that stage outputted to canvas.where it may, or may not be combined with analog, old fashioned painting (at least those on display here). Dealing with blurriness from my recent eye treatment, my initial reaction was, “Hmmmm…If I close my right eye, my good eye, this is how the world looks to me these days.” But, I was drawn back repeatedly, even compelled to make the (unheard of for me) trip to Brooklyn to see the Bushwick segment of this show. In both locations, the effect was the same- I couldn’t get them out of my mind. They’re like something you see when you’re not really looking, or when you’re not fully awake after dreaming, or about to fall asleep…My initial reaction was “This looks easy to do on a computer. Take a photo, blur the heck out of part of it in Photoshop. Add a layer of a frenzied drawing and output to canvas. Then, I remember people say the same thing about Pollock and Rothko, yet no one else has done them. Some works remind me of passages of Monet, some of Yves Tanguay. But not really. They weren’t created like those were and so they don’t look like anything else. Mr. Elrod’s work commands some fancy prices. Ah well…They’re much too big for my place, anyways. If there’s a “cutting edge” in painting in 2016, Jeff Elrod’s work is the closest I’ve seen to being on it. I’m very much looking forward to seeing where this is going.

Auto-Focus, 2016 UV Ink on Canvas 9064 inches. Mystifyingly alluring.

Rubber-Miro, 2015 Acrylic and UV Ink on canvas. His uniquely shaped canvases give the work a different feel from most square/rectangular paintings.

Rake-Adaptable, 2016 UV Ink on FIscher canvas. The ghost of Robert Motherwell? “Haunting” is a word his work brings to my mind most often.

Under The Skin, 2016 UV Ink on canvas, 108 x 84 inches.

Plume, 2016 as seen in Bushwick, Brooklyn. 16 1/4 feet long by 9 1/2 feet tall.

After countless visits, I began to “see” “Jeff Elrods” everywhere I went. Like here-

Life Mirrors Art.

Brian Dettmer: Dodo Data Dada @ P.P.O.W. Mr. Dettmer creates “Book Sculptures,” something new to me. As far as I can tell, he takes a scalpel to a book, or books, and carves away all but what he wants to remain. I’ve never seen anything quite like it.

Funk and Wag, 2016. As in, the whole encyclopedia.

Ew Ass, 2016

PostScript.- And meanwhile, over at Gagosian, Richard Serra’s MASSIVE Every Which Way, 2015, all 16 slabs of it was coming down, making way for the next show there…

Richard Serra, Every Which Way, 2015 @ Gagosian

*-Soundtrack for this Post is “It’s The End Of The World (As We Know It)” by Michael Stipe, Mike Mills, Peter Buck and Bill Berry of R.E.M. and published by Warner/Chappell Music, Inc and Universal Music Publishing Group, from their 1987 album “Document.”

NighthawkNYC.com has been entirely self-funded & ad-free for over 8 years, during which 300 full length pieces have been published! If you’ve found it worthwhile, PLEASE donate to allow me to continue below. Thank you, Kenn.

You can also support it by buying Art, Art & Photography books, and Music from my collection! Art & Books may be found here. Music here and here. 

Written & photographed by Kenn Sava for nighthawknyc.com unless otherwise credited. To send comments, thoughts, feedback or propositions click here. Click the white box on the upper right for the archives or to search them. Subscribe to be notified of new Posts below. Your information will be used for no other purpose.

Bruce Conner- “The Most Important Artist of the 20th Century”

This site is Free & Ad-Free! If you find this piece worthwhile, please donate via PayPal to support it & independent Art writing. You can also support it by buying Art & books! Details at the end. Thank you.

Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava (*- unless otherwise credited)

“In my opinion, Bruce Conner is the most important Artist of the 20th Century.”

And all this time I thought it might have been Picasso. Before you put fingers to keyboard to email me- I didn’t say that. Dennis Hopper did. Here-

In addition to being a fine Actor, Director and Photographer, Hopper was a major, and an astute, collector of Contemporary Art. Sharp enough to attend Andy Warhol’s first show and buy one of his “Soup Can” Paintings for 75.00. He was also a long time friend of Bruce Conner.

You've got to have friends. Bruce Conner, left, with Dennis Hopper.

You’ve got to have friends. Bruce Conner, left, in Hopper’s chair, with Dennis Hopper from the Senior & Shopmaker show catalog.

Still? That’s a pretty big statement, Mr. Hopper.

The Magic Curtain. Like a black hole to new universes within.

The entrance. Walk through this black curtain and it’s like entering a black hole to new universes within.

Though I don’t believe in qualitatively comparing Artists, there are, no doubt, many other differing opinions on the question of who was the most important 20th Century Artist. But, there was some quite compelling evidence in favor of Mr. Hopper’s opinion on view over 20 rooms at “Bruce Conner: It’s All True,” the first posthumous retrospective of the Artist, at MoMA from July 3 through October 2, and now at SFMOMA until January 22, 2017. (You can revisit MoMA’s Show  in amazing detail here.) In fact, it makes Hopper’s case about as well as it is possible to make it. With 250 pieces this show is one mind bend after another after another and after another that doesn’t stop until you’re back outside of it, in the lobby of MoMA’s 6th Floor. It’s like Groucho Marx’ joke delivery style- You don’t like that one? Here’s another. And another, and another, and another until he finally gets you. Having never even heard of Bruce Conner, he got my attention pretty quickly on my first visit.

How my head felt after. Show's Lobby.

“It’s All True’s” Lobby. The show’s title comes from a letter Conner wrote in 2000, paraphrased on the left.

By my third visit, I was obsessed. For me, “Bruce Conner: It’s All True” sets a bench mark for Retrospectives of a Contemporary Artist. Pick a genre- drawing, painting, collage, photography, film, assemblage, Bruce Conner’s work in it can hang with anyone else’s. Here are some things I noticed that could be used to support Mr. Hopper’s claim-

-He was an assemblage Artist every bit as inventive and creative as the great Robert Rauschenberg during the same period. In fact, one of Conner’s assemblages was selected for the 1961 Moma show, “the Art of Assemblage,” when he was 28, where it was shown alongside works by Malevich, Magritte, Miro, Man Ray, Picasso and Rauschenberg. Conner, himself, was denied entry to MoMA on opening night, but that’s a story unto itself.

"THE BOX," 1960 Photo ©MoMA

“THE BOX,” 1960. Dennis Hopper actually preferred this work to Picasso’s “Guernica” as an anti-war statement because it is “not cloaked in pleasing forms.”1 Photo ©MoMA

-While he drew for much of his career, with fascinating results, he created an entirely new and unprecedented type of drawing, made out of inkblots (yes, you read that right) that contain from 1 or 2  upto 494 inkblots in a single work that, I believe, people will spend years trying to figure out how he did them. Even once they do, they are going to have a very hard time achieving his level of mastery with their manipulation.

inkblot-drawing-8-17-1991p

HTF? “INKBLOT DRAWING,” August 17, 1991. See a Detail of this further down. Photo ©MoMA

-His groundbreaking first film, “A MOVIE.” was a work that was hugely influential, credited by the same Dennis Hopper with inspiring the acid scene in his own film “Easy Rider.”

Blowing Minds. "Crossroads," 1976 at Moma. Photo ©Moma

“CROSSROADS,” 1976. Mushrooms, of all kinds, even atomic clouds as here, are a running theme. Yes, all of his titles are in CAPS. *-Photo ©MoMA

“CROSSROADS,” 1976, a 36 minute film that struck me as being part horror film, part meditation on the power of the unseen forces in the universe, showing the unimaginable devastation an atomic explosion unleashes, while at the same time showing it as a force of nature to which it gradually melts into, as we watch the surrounding clouds become indistinguishable from the atomic cloud. The end result is summed up in what writer William C. Wees calls the “Nuclear Sublime2.” Showing multiple views of the atomic blast at Bikini Atoll on July 26, 1947, which Conner selected from the over 500 cameras that filmed the event (some at speeds of up to 8,000 frames per second), and juxtaposes the images with, first, actual sounds of the event, and then soundtracks created by synth master Patrick Gleeson and avant garde composer Terry Riley. Forty years later it’s hard to see this film becoming irrelevant any time soon. It’s a film that everyone involved in the military or government of any nation around the world, or those with the power to vote for or select them should see. Conner’s other films (totaling over 20) were no less creative or groundbreaking, and are increasingly being studied, and recognized.

-He took some of the greatest photos of punk musicians and punk bands ever taken.

MoMA_Bruce Conner_June 2016

Up against the wall! A wall of his punk photos shot at the Mabuhay Gardens Club in L.A. *-Photo ©MoMA

Frankie Fix of "Crime," 1977. Photo ©Moma

FRANKIE FIX of the band “Crime,” 1977. *-Photo ©MoMA

-He created unique portraits he called “photograms” using his own body that are unlike any “selfie” ever taken (actually, Edmund Shea photographed them) and are so ethereal he titled them “Angels.”

Spiritual Side "Sound of One Hand Angel," 1974, Photo ©MoMA

“SOUND OF ONE HAND ANGEL,” 1974, *-Photo ©MoMA

"Angels" by Bruce Conner. Photo courtesy of Moma.

A Room full of “ANGELS.” *-Photo ©MoMA

-His collages are every bit as surreal as any by Max Ernst, the Surrealist Master of the Collage.

"PSYCHEDELICATESSEN OWNER," 1990 collage from engravings. Photo ©MoMA

“PSYCHEDELICATESSEN OWNER,” 1990, collage from engravings. *-Photo ©MoMA

-Being as he was the first Artist to put film to contemporary music, he is considered to be the “Father of Music Video,” with his “COSMIC RAY,” in 1961, then “BREAKAWAY,” with Toni Basil (see above). His subsequent work with David Byrne and Brian Eno on videos for their 1981 album “My Life In The Bush of Ghosts” presaged and anticipated MTV’s “Music Videos.” Having his innovations and techniques aped without credit was not something he accepted well. I put this lower on the list because the music video seems to be fading in importance.

And, he ran for office (a seat on the Board of Supervisors in San Francisco), in 1967, actually garnering a few thousand votes.

So?

Why haven’t more people heard about Bruce Conner? Why isn’t he listed and discussed in 20th Century Art History Books?

"Untitled" from Mandalla Series, 1965, felt tip pen on paper. 10x10 inches

“UNTITLED” from MANDALA SERIES, 1965, felt tip pen on paper. 10×10 inches. *-Photo ©MoMA

Detail of left side

Detail of left side

Bruce Conner was something of af an “anti-artist.”  He didn’t like the art establishment, and that came out in his dealings with galleries and museums, including a bizarre encounter with the Security staff at MoMA, at that opening in 1961, alluded to above. In this show he is quoted questioning the need for an Artist to put his name on a work, and near the end of his career works that are undeniable Bruce Conners began appearing with other names, like “Emily Feather,” or “Anonymouse” attached to them. It seems it was a conscious effort to avoid inclusion. He claimed he hired these Artists, but today, they are assumed to all be by him. He once said having work out in the public under his own name made him nervous.

Women's World. Form Left- Pinups on the back of "Untitled," 1954-61, "Spider Lady," & "Spider Lady Nest," 1959, Homage to Jean Harlow," 1963,

Women on his mind. Form Left- Pinups on the back of “UNTITLED,” 1954-61, “SPIDER LADY,” & “SPIDER LADY NEST,” 1959, “HOMAGE TO JEAN HARLOW,” 1963, “WEDNESDAY,” and “LADY BRAIN,” both 1960. Entrance to “BREAKAWAY,” right. *-Photo ©MoMA

Contemporary Art of any time is supposed to break all the rules that had been set in place before it. In Bruce Conner’s case, he broke the rules in every medium he created in, and he broke the rules for being an Artist in the “Art World,” which he loathed. It’s interesting to me that there is so much craft in his films- including dripping ink on them, punch holes seemingly randomly, that make them Art Pieces in themselves. This is part of a duality in his nature that sees him pay attention to the minutest of details like these films, his collages, or his ink drawings where countless minute lines are drawn in pen that somehow never intersect with each other, contrasted with the hugeness of “Crossroads,” horrible, yet strangely beautiful, and contrasted with the “spirituality” of works like the “Angels” and his final work, “Easter Morning.” Bruce Conner may have been many things, it’s all true (as he says in a letter that is the basis for the show’s title), but one thing he was not is easy to categorize. Unless that word is “Artist.”

The first gallery featuring Assemblages. Photo ©MoMA

After seeing “A MOVIE,” you exit the door at left and enter the first gallery featuring Assemblages. *-Photo ©MoMA

Walking around “It’s All True,” as well as no less than three very good satellite shows going on around town, of Conner’s trippier collages and tapestries at one Paula Cooper, unique works at the other, and prints and drawings at Senior & Shopmaker Gallery. I found that every time I look at one of his works, I’m left with the same question-

"Tocatta & Fugue," 1986, engraving collage

“TOCATTA & FUGUE,” 1986, engraving collage

"Christ Casting Out The Legion Of Devils," Tapestry from engraving collage. Both seen at Paul Cooper Gallery

“CHRIST CASTING OUT THE LEGION OF DEVILS,” Tapestry from engraving collage. Both seen at Paula Cooper Gallery

“HTF?”

That’s “How” inserted instead of the W in WTF? As in- HOW did he do that?” No matter which genre of his work I’m considering, that question hits me. I stare at his drawings, for example, including one with hundreds of lines where no two intersect (like “UNTITLED,” above) and wonder “How did he do that?” I’m face to face with a pseudo Max Ernst collage, like the one above, and wonder “I can’t see anything cut out and applied on top of something else. It’s all seamless, and this was before scanning, photoshop and all the rest. How did he do that?” I look at his movies, “BREAKAWAY,” (above) and wonder the same thing. “How? The editing and the way it’s complied is beyond the technology of the time.” I’m not alone in saying this. In fact, no less than Harvard put on a film series of Bruce Conner’s films in 2008 that THEY called “Bruce Conner, the Last Magician of the 20th Century.” (Mr. Conner passed away in 2008). Then, there’s the “Inkblot” drawings, in which each inkblot is a perfect, unique, miracle of beauty, like a snowflake.

Detail of "INKBLOT DRAWING, August 17, 1991" seen above in full. Photo ©MoMA

Detail of “INKBLOT DRAWING, August 17, 1991” seen above in full. *-Photo ©MoMA

“How the…” Don’t ask.

As near as I can tell, Conner folds the paper (vertically in the image above) then applies the drop of ink. How he manipulates it after that to get these seemingly miraculous results is the mystery. Artist David Hockey wrote a fascinating book titled “Secret Knowledge,” about the lost techniques of the Great Masters of Painting going back to the mid 1400’s. He makes a downright riveting case, via reverse engineering, for some of the optical “tricks” and methods some of the greatest Painters ever used. I think someone is going to need to do a Volume 2 of “Secret Knowledge” and include Bruce Conner. MoMA’s curator, Laura Hoptman, said at the Press Opening, “For Bruce Conner there is always the acknowledgement of the viewer, especially in the drawings you can not only admire the steady hand and the attention to detail but it’s also on us to look so carefully and closely as possible to divine the meaning and also the intensity of the work.” While I agree that looking closely reveals wonders, I also wonder how much Conner really wanted us to see and understand3, how much of Bruce Conner, the Artist, was about making (some) works for himself, works that defy understanding by others because they aren’t meant to be. Unless his wife, Jean, also a very fine Artist, tells us, it looks like we’ll never know.

"Black Dahlia," 1960 Photo © Moma

“BLACK DAHLIA,” 1960. Inspired by an unsolved sex-murder case in L.A. His Assemblages require, and reward, very close looking. You’ll even see a nude, from the back. *-Photo ©MoMA

One of the themes of some bigger NYC Art Shows this year has been a revisiting of the Art History of the 20th Century. “It’s All True” does it again and makes such an emphatic case, as “Nasreen Mohamedi” did earlier this year inaugurating TMB, that I would be shocked if either Artist is omitted going forward.

From the "Dennis Hopper One Man Show," Print after engraving collage as seen at Senior & Shopmaker Galleri

From the “Dennis Hopper One Man Show,” at Senior & Shopmaker Gallery, a partial reconstruction of a Bruce Conner show honoring Dennis Hopper. Limited Edition print after engraving collage.

Beyond that, Dennis Hopper’s opinion will live on. I’m glad he expressed it before he passed of prostate cancer in 2010. Is Bruce Conner “The most important Artist of the 20th Century?” I don’t know if it matters. What matters is that his Art is being seen more and more, and so it will grow in appreciation and influence. Bruce Conner may have had reasons for being an “Anti-Artist,” and “Anti Art World” during his life, but one thing that is apparent- Now that he’s unfortunately no longer with us, his work is going to continue to speak for him, while it is seen far and wide in the 21st Century. Where he will continue to blow minds…like mine.

"BOMBHEAD," 2002

“BOMBHEAD,” 2002. Based on a Self Portrait. *-Photo ©MoMA.

*-Soundtrack for this Post is “In C” by Terry Riley, the soundtrack for Bruce Conner’s final film, the gorgeous masterpiece, “EASTER MORNING,” 2008, which struck me as a farewell to life, and is the final work in “It’s All True.”

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  1. SFWeeky ↩
  2. Wees’ excellent piece on “CROSSROADS,” in which he coins the term, is here. ↩
  3. Very very few are going to get to examine the film strips of his movines to see the attention to detail he lavished on them. ↩

The Rothko Chapel, Chelsea

“I became a painter because I wanted to raise painting to the level of poignancy of music and poetry.” Mark Rothko.

I could sit there for a month. One of the infamous "Seagrams Murals," 1959. Rarely seen.

Seagrams Murals, Section 6, 1959. One of the infamous murals for the 4 Seasons Restaurant, but never installed there.

Lines to get in are nothing new in New York, or in Chelsea, home to some of the most “happening” nightclubs in the City. But a line to get in at 2 or 3pm in the afternoon is rare anywhere in NYC. Even rarer are lines to get into an Art Gallery at that hour- unless it’s late in the run of a “must-see” show. But, the line filled the lobby and extended out the door at the extraordinary Mark Rothko: Dark Palette show which only opened the day before at Pace on West 25th Street. Five years in the making, and focused on exploring one aspect of his work, don’t bother asking for the price list, it’s also unusual for a gallery show because none of the work is for sale. Darn! What will I do now with that spare 90 million dollars?? Maybe I’ll open some grocery supermarkets with reasonable prices most neighborhoods in Manhattan desperately need.

3pm November 5. The crowd in the lobby waits.

3pm November 5. The crowd waiting to get in fills the lobby. Buckle up! It’s only going to get more crowded.

When it comes to writing about the work of Mark Rothko, I have to say up front that it’s very hard for me to be unbiased. Mark Rothko’s Art changed my life. In 1999 I saw his Retrospective at the Old Whitney (now TMB) the final weekend it was there. It was one of the unforgettable experiences I’ve ever had at an Art show, and it was perfect timing, given the roadblock I had hit with record companies in trying to get my records released unaltered, I then decided to turn (back) to Art History, my first love. Thank you, Mark Rothko.

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Let’s get lost. This is how I prefer to see Rothko. Each work can be seen on it’s own. Getting close to feel engulfed by the work is good, too.

There have been Rothko shows in NYC since 1. But, none of them have yet matched the feeling I got from the 1999 show- aided in no small part by the way the works were hung, the way the show moved through his career. I’ve longed for that feeling ever since. At long last, here it is. The “dark” works have a unique mystery among Rothko’s work, and are a terrific choice for a theme. While some see them as “depressing,” (including a lady mentioned in the show’s introduction card who rejected one that Rothko had painted for her for that reason), I find them to be among his most powerful, subtle, even, yes, poignant pieces. While it’s always great to encounter a Rothko in a Museum, they’re usually hung among the work of others, which I find a bit distracting, For me, Rothko needs to be seen and experienced in a “vacuum,” or with only Rothkos nearby. Few institutions have that many Rothkos, and given their popularity, it is very hard for them to part with them and disappoint their visitors, even for a couple of months.

Worshipping at the altar?

Worshipping at the altar?

Luckily, two of the very few people who do have some, the offspring of Mr. Rothko, Dr. Kate Rothko Prizel and Dr. Christopher Rothko, have gone above and beyond to support this show. A number of the works on view come from their collections- by my count, no less than 4 from Kate’s and 2 from Christopher’s, in addition to “Seagrams Mural, Section 6” which they jointly own. That’s 7 of the 21 works on view- one third. (Christopher Rothko, by the way, is the author of one of the very best books on his father there is- Mark Rothko: From the Inside Out.). To help facilitate the loans of 3 pieces from major Museums, the Rothko “kids” loaned the institutions works from their own collections so the institutions would still have Rothkos to show their visitors, and enable them to part with the works requested for this show. Remarkable. Dad would no doubt be proud. With 21 “dark” works, the majority of which are out and out masterpieces in my estimation, including some stunning works on paper mounted on canvas, the results are as close as there has been to a truly “must see” show in Chelsea in years.

Someone else...

Someone else…

That said, it was only a year and a half ago that another show in this same space left me transfixed and provided many hours spent in sheer meditative bliss- by Richard Pousette-Dart. This one is very similar in it’s effect, as we explore the history of Rothko’s use of dark colors in his “sectional” works. I can’t categorize what these works say to me because it’s different each time I see them. Sometimes it’s spiritual. Sometimes poetic. Sometimes I feel like I’m standing on a foreign landscape looking at distant horizons. But, it’s that experience they give, the pure joy of looking, seeing and letting them in that transfixes me.

"Black in Deep Red," 1957. The day will come where these works will be as famous as Monet's are now, in my opinion.

Black in Deep Red, 1957. The day will come when Rothko’s work will be as ubiquitous as Monet’s are now, in my opinion.

This has been a year full of big New York School Abstract Expressionist Shows. First, there was the biggest “name” in AbEx, Jackson Pollock, at MoMA, then concurrent shows of his wife, Lee Krasner, and long time friend, Philip Guston. A very nice smaller show of New York School Artists is going on at Allan Stone Projects that includes two marvelous Joseph Cornell Boxes (Ok, he’s not an AbEx Artist, but his work is wonderfully abstract, and he was a New Yorker), alongside works by Abstract Expressionists2 de Koonjng, Arshile Gorky and Clifford Still. There’s also a nice Joan Mitchell show that’s about the same size as the Rothko show going on very nearby it, AND there’s the Centennial show of Richard Pousette-Dart, for my money the most under appreciated of the lot, going on right now at Pace uptown!

"Untitled," 1955 the earliest work here has never been displayed in the country before.

Untitled, 1955, the earliest work here, has never been displayed in the country before.

Phew…

I didn't bring flowers, so this will suffice as my "bouquet."

I didn’t bring flowers, so this Post will have to suffice as my “bouquet.”

For me, though, this show will be the high point. Short of going to the “real” Rothko Chapel in Houston, Texas or the Seagrams Room at the Tate, London, this is the only, and best, chance you’ll get to get that feeling…until the next big Rothko show. Unlike most of my Art Show Posts, this show only opened this past Friday, November 4, so you have until January 7, 2017 to experience it.

"Untitled," 1968, one of a few acrylic on paper, mounted on panel pieces here, seen from an angle.

Untitled, 1968, one of a few wonderful acrylic on paper, mounted on panel pieces here, has fascinating sides.

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After that? You’re stuck being like me- Praying for the next one.

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*-Soundtrack for this Post is “Rothko Chapel” by Morton Feldman.

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  1. Mark Rothko: The Watercolors in 2014, shining light on his seldom seen work in the medium, and Mark Rothko: A Painter’s Progress, The Year 1949 in 2004, focused and fascinating, both excellent, and both at Pace, East 57th Street. ↩
  2. according to a list The Met has published ↩

Stuart Davis- The King of Swing

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Try it yourself.

Walk into your local Art Museum and look for Stuart Davis. I bet they own at least one, and I also bet it’s on display. I’m making this wager based on my experience that every American Museum I’ve been to, including many smaller ones, owns at least one work by Stuart Davis, and that work seems to always be on view1. This is a testament to his wide, and ongoing, appeal. Stuart Davis’ Art still has a contemporary look and feel to it. Maybe that’s because so many Artists who have come after him, like much of “Pop Art,” have been influenced by him. Somehow, Davis is also an Artist who is rarely given a show. The last big one I know of was “Stuart Davis: American Painter” at The Met in 1991. It’s left me with years of longing to see more than one or two of his works at a time, so I was very excited when I heard about “Stuart Davis: In Full Swing,” June 10-September 25 at the Whitney.

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It turns out to have been worth the wait. With 75 works ranging from 1923 until his final work left unfinished on his easel the night he died in 1964, we get to see much, if not all, of his accomplishment. The 1991 Met show featured 175 works, 31 before the earliest work in this show. While I’m a bit disappointed the show is missing the first decade of his work, (the title “Stuart Davis: In Full Swing” refers to his career being in full swing during the period of his work displayed), what’s included has been marvelously hung adding much insight into Davis’ process and development.

Davis' seminal 4 "Egg Beater" Paintings, 19__, rarely united

Davis’ seminal 4 “Egg Beater” Paintings, 1927-28, rarely united.

…I nailed an electric fan, a rubber glove and an eggbeater to a table and used it as my exclusive subject matter for a year.” Egg Beater No. 4," 1928

Breakthrough. “I nailed an electric fan, a rubber glove and an eggbeater to a table and used it as my exclusive subject matter for a year.2” Egg Beater No. 4,” 1928

Beyond this, it’s simply gorgeous to behold. Davis, the colorist, is  something not often  spoken about, and for me, is under-appreciated. His work needs to be seen in person, where his color makes a vibrant, stunning, often shocking first impression- even in 2016. Looking closer, it becomes apparent that though he uses relatively few colors and repeats them from piece to piece he is a master of color schemes. Has any American Artist used Yellows or Oranges the way Davis has?

"Cliche," 1955

“Cliche,” 1955

Having come out of the end of the era of  “Ashcan School,” Davis’s early work, often depicting street scenes of the greater New York area, shared their darker palette. Here and there he’d inject very bright passages of color, as in “Bleecker Street,” 1912. Soon, they would dominate as the influence of the Europeans, the Cubists 3, and Joan Miro took hold, his palette brightened. Matisse was also an early influence, and  even in the 1950s, Davis’ work features shapes that echo those found in Matisse’s late Cut-Outs.

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“Midi,” 1954

The title “Stuart Davis: In Full Swing” is a double entendre, also referring to his love of Jazz- “swing” being the most popular form of the music in the 1920’s and 1930’s. Stuart Davis loved Jazz. As I wrote not all that long ago upon accidentally discovering where he lived for 20 years in Greenwich Village, it was, coincidentally or not, around the corner from some of the greatest jazz clubs in the world4.

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The plaque outside Davis’ home of 20 years where he created works that have “come home” to the nearby Whitney.

Looking at his work, it’s clear that he “gets” what it’s like to play Jazz, what goes on in the mind of the musician or singer, and it comes out of his hands, like it does for musicians, too.

Davis In Full Swing. "Swing Landscape," 1937

In Full Swing. “Swing Landscape,” 1938, over 14 feet long, the largest work here, originally intended for a Brooklyn Apartment Building.

Walking around, I spent quite a bit of time trying to associate Davis’ work with specific Jazz Artists. While I found there were many who came to mind for specific works, I came to feel that Davis’ work was ahead of it’s time, musically, as well as visually/Artistically. His shapes seem to anticipate the angular developments of Musicians like Thelonious Monk and Andrew Hill. Standing in front of a work like “Swing Landscape,” 1938, an endlessly fascinating blend of nautical visual motifs in a riot of color, the feeling is like listening to a great Big Band. Take Duke Ellington’s or Count Basie’s classic Big Bands that were chock full of unique soloists. each one with a recognizable solo voice. When Lester Young soloed on Tenor Sax for Basie, there was no doubt who was playing. Same for Johnny Hodges, “Tricky” Sam Nanton, Ben Webster, or Bubber Miley with Duke, not to mention Duke and the Count, themselves. Looking at “Swing Landscape,” is like hearing a big band to me, a band comprised of unique voices (colors on shapes), each playing their own part, but still a part of the whole. There is an overriding feeling of joy, and life. But, there were other works that looked to me more like the music of non-swing Masters Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers and even early Ornette Coleman. Though I mixed them in, and many others, I found myself repeatedly returning to Duke Ellington, one of the greatest composers of the century, in any style of music, who also continually pushed and evolved his style, taking the Big Band to many other places musically, like Davis did with Cubism, as the soundtrack for my visits.

Stuart Davis with Duke Ellington, 1943, from the show's catalog.

Let’s talk about Jazz. Stuart Davis with Duke Ellington at a Davis show, 1943, from this show’s catalog.

Also like a Jazz Artist, Davis returned again and again to earlier compositions and “riffed” on them, as Patricia Hills said 5. Davis re-interpreted his earlier compositions the way Jazz Artists reinterpret standards- using his original theme as a jumping off point to create something entirely new.

Progress in the Process. All 3 of these works are based on the center work from 192_. Left, 195_ and 19__, right

Riffin’ on a Theme. All 3 of these works are based on “Landscape, Goucester,” center, as follows.

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“Landscape, Goucester,” 1922…

"Colonial Cubism," 1954

Became this- “Colonial Cubism,” 1954

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And then, this- “Memo, #2,” 1956

In terms of Jazz in Art, I can’t think of another Artist who has a similar effect on me. Other Artists listened to Jazz, during the same time and later, but Stuart Davis’ work looks like Jazz to me. I get that feeling from isolated works by other Artists, especially that of Romare Bearden, who Davis told to visualize the relationships between jazz and art in 1940, though his works are primarily collages, not paintings, but Davis’s whole body of work, with rare exception, gives me that feeling6.

Blue Note. "The Woodshed," 1969, collage by Romare Bearden. The "Woodshed," or "Shed" is where musicians hone their craft.

Blue Note. “The Woodshed,” 1969, collage by Romare Bearden, at The Met Breuer.. The “Woodshed,” or “Shed” is where musicians hone their craft.

Yet, there’s more going on here than Jazz.

Revolutionizing the still life. “Super Table,” 1924. For me, the earliest masterpiece in this show.

We watch Davis breaking through and coming into his own in works like “Super Table,” 1924, and the “Egg Beater” series of 1927-28, which were revolutionary takes on the Cubist “still life,” that proved to be the jumping off points for all his future work that would see him develop his own approach to Cubism, becoming one of the very few outside of the inventors of the style to do so. While he built upon the influences of others, he was very influenced by place and environment as well. His 1928 trip to Paris crops up again and again in his later work. His summers along the water in Gloucester, Mass supplied a life long reservoir of nautical imagery, as did, NYC, while Jazz provided inspiration. Products appear in Davis’ work, possibly evolving out of the still life works of the Cubists, but quickly becoming his own. He then takes words, first seen in ads and on products, and uses them in new ways, sometimes referencing the “hip” jargon of the time, sometimes cryptically, that only he really understands.

"Odol," 1924, a bottle of mouthwash, presaging Warhol by 35 years.

“Odol,” 1924, a bottle of mouthwash, presaging Warhol by 35 years.

A walk through the show reveals that Pop Art, and a number of it’s leading lights were creating work that featured elements Stuart Davis began using way back in the 1920’s. In fact, after seeing it, you may never look at Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Jasper Johns or James Rosenquist quite the same again. Beyond his use of products, his use of words is something that many Artists since Davis, right up to Ed Ruscha, Jenny Holzer and Wayne White, have continued, some basing their entire Artistic output on them. While his influence is huge, it’s also interesting to me how different his work is from the work of the other Abstract Artists of his time, especially the Abstract Expressionists, who were then working right around him every day in NYC and it’s suburbs. Philip Guston speaks of knowing him 7. What about Jackson Pollock, (who was born, lived and work, then died during the time Davis was alive)? Did Davis know him? It would seem to me they must have met, especially since they both worked for the WPA (Works Progress Administration). It’s hard to imagine two more different Abstract Artists.

The end. "Fin," 1962-64, as it was left on his easel when he died.

The end. “Fin,” 1962-64, as it was left on his easel when he died. The yellow-ish lines are masking tape Davis used as guides.

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“Arboretum by Flashbulb,” 1942

It must also be mentioned that Mrs. Gertrude V. Whitney was a substantial, and early, supporter of Davis, in a number of ways, both financially (buying his Art and advancing him funds) and through the Whitney Studio Club, the precursor of the Whitney Museum, where he got his “big break,” 8 with a 2 week retrospective exhibit in December, 1926. 90 years later, Davis returns to the latest incarnation of the Whitney Museum, a few minutes walk from where he once lived, something of a “champion” of American 20th Century Art, himself. His influence is ongoing. His achievement is still being considered. Yet? All in Stuart Davis’ Legacy is not painted in the bright colors he used so masterfully in his work.

"Little Giant Still Life," 1950, a box of "Champion" matches

“Little Giant Still Life,” 1950, a box of “Champion” matches.

While the joy, beauty and insights this show provides will stay with me for a very long time, it’s impossible not to also be reminded of the fact that 90 works by Stuart Davis were discovered to have been “looted” 9 from the Artist’s Estate by Laurence Salander of Salander-O’Reilly Gallery, the long time dealer for Stuart Davis’ Estate, in 2007. The court ruled that Salander owes Earl Davis and the Estate $114.9 million dollars, but being as Salander is behind bars on Riker’s Island no one knows if and when any of that money will be repaid. As bad as that is, perhaps even more tragically, to this day, I’m not sure that all of Davis’ works have been accounted for. The case led to the creation of new laws pertaining to Artist/Gallery dealings. That is the saddest part of what is otherwise the great and ongoing influence that is the legacy of Stuart Davis, one of America’s greatest, and most influential, Artists.

Even his beautiful signature, boldly featured in many of his works, has the peaks and valleys, the ebbs and flow, of a Jazz solo.

*-Soundtrack for this Post is “It Don’t Mean A Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing)” by Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington, the title of which appears on Davis’ painting “Tropes de Teens,” 1956.

NighthawkNYC.com has been entirely self-funded & ad-free for over 8 years, during which 300 full length pieces have been published! If you’ve found it worthwhile, PLEASE donate to allow me to continue below. Thank you, Kenn.

You can also support it by buying Art, Art & Photography books, and Music from my collection! Art & Books may be found here. Music here and here. 

Written & photographed by Kenn Sava for nighthawknyc.com unless otherwise credited. To send comments, thoughts, feedback or propositions click here. Click the white box on the upper right for the archives or to search them. Subscribe to be notified of new Posts below. Your information will be used for no other purpose.

  1. I’m not wagering “anything” on this, so if you find one that doesn’t have a Stuart Davis, write me and let me know and I’ll send this Post to them to hopefully influence their future purchases! ↩
  2. Stuart Davis “Autobiography” in “Stuart Davis” edited by Diane Kelder, P.26 ↩
  3. Davis, 21, was the youngest artist to be included in the legendary Armory Show of 1913, the first modern art show in America, which marked the arrival of Cubism in New York. ↩
  4. His parents had lived in the Hotel Chelsea, 11 blocks north. ↩
  5. “Stuart Davis,” by Patricia Hills, P. 19 ↩
  6. I am only talking about Artists who were/are Painters first, so I am leaving out Musician/Artists like Miles Davis, Art Blakey, Tony Bennett, Muhal Richard Abrams, Anthony Braxton, Roscoe Mitchell, et al.. ↩
  7. Guston “Collected Writings” P.40 ↩
  8. according to Patricia Hills “Stuart Davis” P.73 ↩
  9. Artnews April 18, 2014 ↩

NoteWorthy Shows-October, 2016

As a counterpoint to my longer pieces on big shows, here’s something else-  shorter looks at some especially Noteworthy Shows that I’m not going to have the time to do the full pieces on that they each deserve, but that I want to bring to your attention.

Post-Labor Day has seen things quiet down on the NYC Museum show scene, after an insanely busy summer. The action has turned to the galleries. Here are some shows I saw recently that I was especially impressed with, in no particular order-

“Ethan Murrow: Water Almanac” @Winston Wachter. A show of very large drawings(!) about the folly of man trying to control nature, many featuring water, shown in a space that was partially submerged almost 3 years ago after Hurricane Sandy, destroying some of Mr. Murrow’s work. When I pointed out the irony of it to him, he responded, “At least they weren’t people,” he said referring to his lost work. When I asked him why he draws instead of paints he spoke of the minimal amount of materials necessary. His work has wonderful elements of the Surrealism of Max Ernst and Bruce Conner that he makes seem everyday real world.

"Deluge Estimator," 2016, graphite on paper

Ready for the next Sandy? Hmmm… “Deluge Estimator,” 2016, graphite on paper

Ethan Murrow (in orange shirt) at his opening.

Ethan Murrow (just to the left in orange shirt) at his opening.”Hail Cannon Rainmaker,” 2016, graphite on paper, 60 x 48 inches, right.

"To Redirect the Tempest," 2016, graphite on paper

“To Redirect the Tempest,” 2016, graphite on paper, 52 x 72 inches

“Meleko Mokgosi: Democratic Intuition” @ Jack Shainman Gallery. I’d write something about this, if I could ever finish looking at it and thinking about it.

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“Democratic Intuition- Comrades II,” a very large work

And seen at the show's 2nd location.

And as seen at the show’s 2nd location.

“Sol LeWitt” at 3 Paul Cooper Gallery Locations, Pace Prints, and The Met. Yes, no less than 5 simultaneous shows featuring Lewitt’s drawings, scultpture, photography, collages, prints and, suddenly ubiquitous wall drawings (not to mention the permanent one on view in the NYC Subway at 57th Street & Columbus Circle!).

"Complex Form #65," 1989, painted wood, 59 x 38 x 40 inches, in front of "Wall Drawing #368" @ Paula Cooper.

“Complex Form #65,” 1989, painted wood, 59 x 38 x 40 inches, in front of “Wall Drawing #368” @ Paula Cooper.

Detail

Detail

"Wall Drawing #370" as seen at The Met

“Wall Drawing #370” as seen at The Met

“Alexi Torres: Sun Light” @ UNIX Gallery. No mere photo-realistic interpretations of source photos here. Visions- exquisitely executed.

"Sun Light-Ernesto," 2016, oil on canvas

“Sun Light-Ernesto,” 2016, oil on canvas, 72 x 68 inches

"Sun Light-Miguel," 2016, 84 x 80 inches, oil on canvas

“Sun Light-Miguel,” 2016, , oil on canvas, 84 x 80 inches

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Detail

Miguel- Source Photo

Miguel- Source Photo

Robert Currie in “Mind Storm” @ Bryce Wolkowitz. A name new to me. As close as I can gather, Robert Currie applies paint to monofilament thread in rows, which can be seen from the side, or in their reflections, below the works. The image can only really be seen from directly in front. Somehow, they still manage to evoke the sense of the place as well as the sense of a bygone era.

Installation View

Installation View

"17,820cm of nylon monofilament and acrylic," 2016. That's 590 feet.

Entitled- “17,820cm of nylon monofilament and acrylic,” 2016. That’s 590 feet of it in a work that’s 12 x 16 x 5 inches.

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Side view

“Fahamu Pecou: #BlackMatterLives” @Lyons Wier Gallery. Prolific and multi-talented, this could be a breakthrough show for him. Powerful. Gorgeous rawness. Present tense.

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“Even In Darkness,” 2016, acrylic, spray paint, gold leaf on canvas, 60 x 48 inches

"Ultimate Yello Brick," drawing

“Ultimate Yello Brick,” 2016, graphite and iridescent ink on paper

And- “diane arbus: in the beginning” @ The Met Breuer. Memorable as much for the show’s content as for it’s innovative display, Ms. Arbus’ beginnings show the Artist’s eye fully formed. Each of the 100 plus images on view is given it’s own wall- a side of a “mini-pillar” that allows the viewer to move through the show any which way they want to. Ingenious and ground-breaking, it’s more a case of The Met showing off it’s construction capabilities and resources more than “why didn’t anyone else think of this before?”

There is no "recommended" way to see this show.

There is no “recommended” way to see this show.

Especially noteworthy for me was a photo of my late friend, the legendary Stormé DeLarverie,, titled Miss Stormé DeLarverie,The Lady Who Appears to be a Gentleman, NYC, 1961. I knew Storme during the final decade of her life, and she had told me that Diane Arbus had photographed her, though I had not previously seen it. I took it with a grain of salt, given to tall tales as she was on occasion (will we ever know if she really was the “cause of,” or started, the Stonewall Uprising, not “Riot”, which I heard her claim she was?). But, there she is, sitting elegantly on a park bench in 1961, immortalized for all time, in the permanent collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and on view as part of this very good show at The Met Breuer. Diane Arbus had one of the greatest eyes in photography.

Storme, in full effect in 1961. 45 years before I would meet her.

Stormé, in full effect in 1961. 45 years before I would meet her.

Some of these shows are still up, some have just closed. And somewhere the singer is saying…

“’cause no one knows about a good thing
Until a good thing is gone.”

R.I.P- Stormé DeLarverie,. Get home safe, my friend.
*- Soundtrack for this Post is “No One Knows About A Good Thing” by Curtis Mayfield and Daryl Simmons, from Mayfield’s album “New World Order,” and published by Warner- Tamerlane Publishing Corp.

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Does Humor Belong In Art? Ask Wayne Whiter

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Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava.

In 1986 the great Frank Zappa released an album who’s title asked “Does Humour Belong In Music?” The same year Wayne White was working as set designer, puppet creator & operator on the ground breaking, now classic, avant-garde TV show, “Pee-Wee’s Playhouse,” for which he won 3 Emmy Awards. Not content with that, 1986 also saw him win a Billboard Magazine award for best Art Direction for Peter Gabriel’s music video “Big Time.” He followed that up with an MTV Music Video Award for designing the Smashing Pumpkins video “Tonight, Tonight” in 1996-

20 years later I caught up with what he’s doing now over at his show, “I”m Having A Dialogue With The Universe And You’re Just Sitting There,” at the Joshua Liner Gallery, in the shadow of the new Zaha Hadid Building still going up on West 28th street. (They’ve added her name in very large letters at the very top, looking not unlike one of Wayne White’s “Word Paintings,” though it’s temporary…I assume.) As for Wayne White, he’s moved on from Pee-Wee to this-

3 Works in Wayne's custom hand holders.

Wayne White’s “set-like” installation for 3 of his “Word Paintings.”

The endless sailboat is now the endless covered wagon above on the left, below, and is joined by a series of Wayne’s “Word Paintings,” which consists of words and phrases he paints on top of old lithographs he finds in thrift stores, and one sculpture.

"I'm Having A Dialogue With the Universe And You're Just Sitting There," 2016

“I’M HAVING A DIALOGUE WITH THE UNIVERSE AND YOU’RE JUST SITTING THERE,” 2016

It turns out that all the while (actually, most of his life) Wayne White has been drawing incessantly, as can be seen in the 400 page monograph edited by designer Todd Oldham entitled, “Wayne White: Maybe Now I’ll Get The Respect I So Richly Deserve.” But even this only covers some of his creative work. Yet, he is clear on what he wants to accomplish.

“My mission is to bring humor into fine Art. I’m not talking about coy art world funny. I’m talking about real world, Richard Pryor funny. Humor is our most sacred quality. Without it, we are dead,” he says.

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“HAD IT GOIN ON BUT LOST IT THEN GOT IT BACK THEN FUCKED UP AND LOST IT,” 2016

"DEMAGOGUE," 2016

“DEMAGOGUE,” 2016

Is this Art? Hmmmm….Time will tell. There is a history of “word art” in museums, from Stuart Davis through Jasper Johns, Warhol, Ed Ruscha, Jenny Holzer and Barbara Kruger.

Ed Ruscha's "OOF," 1962, at Moma, one of the most beloved works in Western Art at the NighthawkNYC Offices (It's an inside joke.)

Ed Ruscha’s “OOF,” 1962, at Moma, a favorite here at the NighthawkNYC Offices.

There is the whole question about the ethics of taking someone else’s art and painting over it, though Mr. White only paints on lithographs, not paintings, so he’s not defacing a one of a kind, like Hans-Peter Feldman, who happened to have a show right around the corner, does. There is recent precedent for this in Ai Weiwei’s “Coca-Cola” painted on an antique Chinese Urn, among others, but I am not an intellectual property lawyer.

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I find it ironic that he did the Art Direction for Gabriel’s Big Time…

whose lyrics now seem prophetic-

“The place where I come from is a small town
They think so small, they use small words
But not me, I’m smarter than that,
I worked it out
I’ll be stretching my mouth to let those big words come right out”*

Born and raised in Chattanooga, Tennessee, his life changed when he discovered the underground comics of Art Spiegelman and R. Crumb. He hunted down Spiegelman and took his cartooning class at the School of Visual Arts. After graduating, Pee-Wee, and the music videos, a studio accident led to his putting words on found art, and his “Word Paintings” were born. Over a decade later, they are becoming iconic- most of those on view are sold, some for as much as $25,000.00. But, they are only one side of the man’s talent. I yearn to see a more complete showing of his range- his more abstract Word Paintings, as well as his other paintings which are not based on found lithographs, his sculpture, his puppets, and on and on. The breath of his talent is both mind-bending and mind-opening.

Mr. White is, also, quite a self-promoter, which he accomplishes with both southern charm and his trusty banjo in hand. There is no better sample of, or introduction to him, than this-

And? If you want to see more of him, there’s a new documentary on him called “Beauty Is Embarrassing,” that was a hit at the festivals and is now out on DVD.

Also of note is the installation- a set design, itself. Along with the “art holders,” White has collaborated with a Brooklyn company to create his own “Waynetopia” wall paper, which in installed in the back half of the show. You can buy it for 11.00 the square foot.

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The rear half of the show features White’s “Waynetopia” wallpaper, available at $11. the sq foot, and a windmill word sculpture.

Side view of one of White's Art Holders.

Side view of one of White’s Art Holders. LOVE the painted faux shadow lines on the wall..

High above the show are his initials, as he signs his patintgs.

High above the show are his initials, as he signs his paintings.

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Oh! And lest I forget- If you don’t have a spare $20,000. laying around for a painting, you can always head over to the wonderful Fishs Eddy who have collaborated with him on a collection of serving trays. Yes, serving trays. At popular prices. I guess with a couple of hooks you could hang one on your wall, and take a trip around the world with the savings. (I’ve got my eye on the “Luv Hurtz” tray myself, though “Beauty Is Embarassin’!” is a close second.)

Wayne White Serving Trays in collaboration with Fishs Eddy, NYC

Wayne White Serving Trays in collaboration with Fishs Eddy, NYC, seen in their Broadway store.

While I prefer his edgier work (surprise, surprise), Wayne White is so prolific, he’s like the weather in Miami- If you don’t like it now, wait 15 minutes- it’ll change. Meaning, he’s almost certainly got something in his oeuvre to wow you. He has begun to get shows where he’s been able to bring all of his talents to bear, (like “BIG LICK BOOM,” an installation at the Taubman Museum,Roanoke,VA. in 2012). He is yet another of the generation of Artists who have come up influenced as much by  R. Crumb’s “Zap” and Art Spiegelman’s “Raw” as by Raphael. Yet, I’ll give him this- Wayne White is, perhaps, funnier than Speigelman or Crumb (though both, assuredly, have many moments of their own, I don’t think humor is their primary goal.) Time will tell what Wayne White’s ultimate “goal” is. For now, he’s building a following and breaking barriers. It will be interesting to see where he takes things.

"THOSE GUYS ARE PUSSIES, 2016. I can see this hanging on some exec's wall.

“THOSE GUYS ARE PUSSIES, 2016. I can see this hanging on some exec’s wall.

WE WERE IN AWE OF HIS WORK BUT HE WAS A GIANT ASSHOLE, 2016

WE WERE IN AWE OF HIS WORK BUT HE WAS A GIANT ASSHOLE, 2016

As I left Joshua Liner, I came away thinking that it’s not often an Artist goes to such lengths to install a show, especially one that is only up for exactly one month. The work designing and creating this installation must have taken much much longer. As much as the work on display, I was impressed by what that says. It really was like walking around in a “Wayne White World.” It’s unique, wonderfully well thought out, and, ummmm, what’s that word I’m looking for? Oh yeah….FUN!

*-Soundtrack for this Post is “Big Time” by Peter Gabriel, from “So,” and published by Sony/ATV Music Publishing, LLC.

NighthawkNYC.com has been entirely self-funded & ad-free for over 8 years, during which 300 full length pieces have been published! If you’ve found it worthwhile, PLEASE donate to allow me to continue below. Thank you, Kenn.

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Written & photographed by Kenn Sava for nighthawknyc.com unless otherwise credited. To send comments, thoughts, feedback or propositions click here. Click the white box on the upper right for the archives or to search them. Subscribe to be notified of new Posts below. Your information will be used for no other purpose.