MoMA

Ed Ruscha & The Two-Sided Coin of Influence

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

This is the third and final part of my look at Ed Ruscha/Now Then. Part 1  is here. Part 2 is here.

1- Heads

One door closed, another opened. Los Angeles County Museum on Fire, 1965-8, Oil on canvas, seen at MoMA. Ed Ruscha/Now Then is now open there. Pictures in this piece are thumbnails. Click any for full size.

Ed Ruscha/Now Then is a memory for those of us who saw it at MoMA from September 10, 2023 to January 15th of this year. It’s a memory in the making for those who are seeing it now at LACMA, seen above in Ed Ruscha’s 1965-8 nebulous “portrait” of it (which I discussed in Part 1), or will be seeing it until it closes there on October 6th. They’ll be pleased to know it’s a show with staying power, a show I continue to relive and think about on a daily basis, six months after it closed here. After following the trail of his devlopment in Part 1, “Ed Ruscha’s Head Scratchers,” seeing some echoes of the work of Artists past, I began to wonder… Every Artist I’ve come across has had influences. Who influenced Ed Ruscha? As the show was up, and now after it ended here, that question lingered.

Marcel Duchamp, L.H.O.O.Q., 1919, or later. One Artist Ed Ruscha has repeatedly expressed his admiration for is Duchamp, who he met in the early 1960s. There are numerous version of L.H.O.O.Q. since the 1919 original. I chose this one because t contains all the elements of the original, which I cannot find (if you have  let me know)- the mustache, the goatee, and the famous letters all of which Duchamp added to a Mona Lisa postcard. Duchamp once said that L.H.O.O.Q. means “there is fire down below,” though I’ve seen other definitions.  *- Photographer unknown.

“Duchamp had quite a sizable influence on me from a pictorial standpoint and from an emotional standpoint,” Ed Ruscha (Ed Ruscha, Leave Any Information After the Signal, P.324).

Ed Ruscha has not written an autobiography, so his book, Leave Any Information After the Signal, a collection of “Writings, Interviews, Bits, Pages” from 1960 to 2000 is the closest thing we have to a primary written source. In addition to just looking, I turned to it, along with the numerous other interviews he’s given over his six-decade plus career, for insights.

As seen in Part 1– Encountering Johns’s  Target with Four Faces in a black & white reproduction in a 1957 magazine was, he said, an ‘atomic bomb’ in his training, ‘a stranger fruit’ that he ‘saw as something that didn’t seem to follow the history of art. My teachers said it was not art. ‘I didn’t need to see the colors or the size…’ ‘I was especially taken with the fact that it was symmetrical, which was just absolutely taboo in art school- you didn’t make anything symmetrical…Art school was modernism, it was asymmetry, it was giant brush strokes…it was all these other things that were gestural rather than cerebral. So I began moving to things that had more of a premeditation1.’” Jasper Johns, Target with Four Faces, 1955, Encaustic on newspaper and cloth over canvas surrounded by four tinted-plaster faces in wood box with hinged front. Seen in Jasper Johns: Mind/Mirror at the Whitney in 2021.

Besides naming Duchamp, Jasper Johns and his counterpart Robert Rauschenberg, Ed Ruscha hasn’t addressed the subject of influences all that often.

René Magritte, The Treachery of Images (This is Not a Pipe), 1929, Oil on canvas. (Not in the show.) *-LACMA Photo

Pondering the visual evidence, the first name that came to mind was Rene Magritte, 1898-1967, a well-known Belgian Artist who also had a long career and touched on a number of subjects Ed Ruscha has, while sharing his fondness for taking the familiar out of context (which Mr. Ruscha does with words, objects and places). He also incorporated words. Though often labelled a “Surrealist,” his work touches on any number of other realms and styles of Painting, which made him ahead of his time. As a result, his influence is extraordinary and ongoing. Time and again, I’d look at an Ed Ruscha, or a section of one, and think “Magritte,” beginning with Actual Size, 1962, which I showed in Part 1, which echoes Magritte’s The Treachery of Images, 1929 better known by the famous words it includes, “This is Not a Pipe2.” The Magritte seems to echo his contemporary, Duchamp’s L.H.O.O.Q., from 1919.

Salvador Dalí, Open Field with Ball in Centre and Mountains in  Rear, Study for the Walt Disney film Destino, 1948, Oil on masonite, left. Ed Ruscha, Painkillers, Tranquilizers, Olive, 1969, right. (*- Dali from the Dalí & Film MoMA catalog. Ed Ruscha as I saw it in the show.)3.

Of him, Mr. Ruscha said, “Yes, Magritte did influence me, but it came the other way around—what I call 360-degree influence. That’s influence from a person’s thoughts and force and not from his pictures, which the person being influenced has not seen, until later on. The same with Dalí. I’ve been influenced by Dalí, but it’s been through other sources. Because I’ll go back, and I’ll be working on something and I’ll see a picture of Dalí’s I’ve never seen before, and there is my work. (P.56).” I wrote about seeing Dalí in Rauscha in Part 1– before I found that quote.

Surrealism Soaped and Scrubbed, Ed Ruscha’s cover design for Artforum 5, No. 1, Special Issue: Surrealism, September, 1966. 

What about “Surrealism’s” influence, that of the group of European Artists so labelled?

Ed Ruscha was Art Director for Artforum Magazine from 1966-19724. His cover for the September, 1966 “Surrealism” Special Edition I find fascinating, particularly in regards to Ed Ruscha’s Art, overall. While this image has almost nothing to do with “historical Surrealism,” I find it ripe with the “kind” of surrealism (small “s,” which he also uses here) I see in Ed Ruscha’s work, while also being another of his trademarked play on words. There is nothing in “historical Surrealism” that influenced this (as far as I know), and so it’s another work that makes me wonder what, if anything, inspired it. On page 349 of Leave Any Information After the Signal, Mr. Ruscha denies the influence of the Surrealists handling of light on his work. That’s all he has to say about it.

The Back of Hollywood, 1977, Oil on canvas. Was Ed Ruscha the first to Paint words backwards? Probably not.

What about influences on his Word Painting? In After the Signal, he said,  “Well, there’ve been so many artists who have used words throughout the centuries really, but the ones I enjoy are mostly from the twentieth century. Say, Kurt Schwitters. [. . .] 5” On page 115, Paul Karlstrom directly asks Mr. Ruscha,  “Who were your heroes then, your role models?” He replied, “Well, I guess de Kooning was, and Franz Kline. Franz Kline had a lot to say at that particular time, and so they were more or less the passwords. You just emulated them, almost automatically. Then if you couldn’t emulate them you weren’t really on the right track. I still think that. But the work of Johns and Rauschenberg marked a departure in the sense that their work was premeditated.” It sounds like he was referring to his early days as a student under the Abstract Expressionist influenced Chouinard faculty in the late 1950s, as once again, it’s hard for me to see the influence of de Kooning or Kline in Ed Ruscha’s work.

Joan Miró, Photo: This is the Color of My Dreams 1925, Oil on canvas. *- Met Museum Photo

The Surrealists began as a literary “movement,” that experimented with “automatic writing.” Later, their influence spread to Painting. In Miró’s Photo: This is the Color of My Dreams, it comes full circle. Part of the Artist’s “peinture-poésie” (painting-poetry) series, this strikes me as a forerunner or precursor to the Word Paintings of Ed Ruscha. Yet, I have no idea if he saw it, or other works in Mirós series,  or when.

America’s Future, 1977, Oil on canvas. The title is shown in the next picture.

The feeling I’m left with is that these Artists “effected” him in ways outside of a direct visual influence. They are, what I call, “echoes.” What Ed Ruscha called “360 degree” influences. As for the stated influences, in Part 2, I mentioned that Thomas Cole was the influence on Mr. Ruscha’s Course of Empire series, from who he borrowed the name of the series. It seems to me the rest of his influences, if any, remain up for conjecture. Still, taking him at his work on possible influences would leave Ed Ruscha remarkably original.

Detail. Though Painted 18 years before he began his Course of Empire series I showed in Part 2, seeing this made me wonder if this work should be appended to the end of the series, i.e. the final outcome of it.

2- Tails

Turning the influence coin over, however, 67 years, and counting, into one of the most remarkable careers in American Art history, at this moment in time it’s hard to think of another Modern & Contemporary Artist, let alone an American Artist, who is more influential than Ed Ruscha is. In fact, it’s impossible for me to list here all the realms in which his influence can be seen. Those that come to mind the quickest include-

-His role in furthering the breaking of the strangle hold of Abstract Expressionism in Painting in the early 1960s.

-His unique way of incorporating words and typography into his Art.

-His Paintings of L.A. and the American West6.

No place on the planet has more Artist’s books than NYC’s Printed Matter, home of 15 ,000 books they’ve created. How many are/were inspired in part or wholly by Ed Ruscha? I don’t know the total but I keep finding more every time I go in. May 6, 2024.

-His ground-breaking Artist’s books/PhotoBooks. (Is it a stretch to say he’s played a defining role in the Contemporary Artist’s Book & PhotoBook phenomenon? I don’t think so.)

-His style of nonjudgmental roadside and aerial Photography.

-Entire genres of Painting, Photography and books have sprung up around his work.

Jeff Brouws, Various Small Books Referencing Various Small Books by Ed Ruscha, 2013. 288 pages of books, and just books, by other Artists influenced by Ed Ruscha, and it’s now 11 years old!

To this point, at least two substantial books, including the book above, have been published focused solely on his influence! All of this is even more impressive (or mind-boggling) when you consider Ed Ruscha is still with us and going strong at 86. Usually, the influence of Artists is something referred to in the past tense.

-His unique way of incorporating words and typography into his Art.

Ed Ruscha’s presence is so pronounced at Printed Matter, they even have a well-worn box just for books he’s influenced. ‘Nuff said. No, that’s not a copy of Mr. Ruscha’s very rare Twentysix Gasoline Stations. It’s Michalis Pincher’s 2009 homage to it, which “borrows” Ruscha’s cover verbatim.

All of this, also, makes it harder to fathom that Ed Ruscha/Now Then was the first large Ed Ruscha show here in 41 years7, and his first show at MoMA! That makes the extent of his influence that much more impressive. Suffice it to say it’s a lot easier to see Ed Ruscha’s influence than it might be to see the influence of others on his work.is so pronounced.

The saddest moment of the entire 4 month run of Ed Ruscha/ Now Then: the show’s entrance, moments after it closed for the last time on January 15, 2024. I saw it on its first preview day, and I was there when it closed for good. Shows are fugacious events. The ending of a great show is always sad; like saying “goodbye” to a friend. One you’ll never see again.

-Takeaways

In addition to providing an opportunity to ponder the scope of his influence, Now Then provides the chance to assess his achievement and his place among the important Artists of both the 20th and 21st centuries. Ed Ruscha strikes me as an Artist who is continually moving forward to the point that he is a seemingly endless innovator. Ed Ruscha/Now Then provided a rare chance to see the craft behind the mystery his work evokes; to watch the Artist move on an almost step-by-step basis from his beginnings though each of his phases, with a focus on his recurring themes and his innovations.

Yet, he’s also an Artist who’s extremely aware of his, and our, pasts, and his Art stays in touch with it often in surprising ways. Ed Ruscha has never stood still long enough to have any box his work gets put in fit for very long. The Ed Ruscha box is the only one that fits an Artist as extraordinarily diverse as Mr. Ruscha has been and continues to be. Ed Ruscha/Now Then is a show that will live long in memory, and no doubt, influence.

Part 1 of my look at Ed Ruscha/Now Then is here. Part 2 is here.

*- Soundtrack for this piece is  “Goodnight My Love,” as performed by Paul Anna. In 2017, MOCA commissioned a short documentary on two themes in Ed Ruscha’s work (the text of which is here). In the resulting piece, Ed Ruscha says, “I’m gonna play this tune called ‘Goodnight My Love’ and this represents everrything I felt about California when I first came out here…” Because he doesn’t specify which recording he’s going to play, I chose the Paul Anka version from 1969.

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  1. Alexandra Schwartz, Ed Ruscha’s Los Angeles, P.15 ↩
  2. I cannot think of Rene Magritte without thinking of the singular Photographer, Duane Michals. When I met him, I quickly shifted the chat from Photography to Painting. He rightly gloated over the fact that he had met and Photographed his three favorite Painters- Balthus, Giorgio de Chirico, and Rene Magritte, with who he did a terrific PhotoBook, that he graciously signed for me. All three are under-appreciated in my book, and remain among my favorites, too. ↩
  3. In spite of being among the best known, in my view, Dalí may be the most under-appreciated Artist of the 20th century, as anyone who saw the incredible Salvador Dalí Centennial Exhibition at the Philadelphia Museum in 2005 knows. It’s partially his own fault, as the endless fantastic stunts he put on overshadows the appreciation of his Art in my opinion. History will eventually fix that, I believe. ↩
  4. Alexandra Schwartz, P.35 ↩
  5. Ed Ruscha, Leave Any Information After the Signal, P. 324 ↩
  6. Along with those of, and quite different from,Georgia O’Keeffe. ↩
  7. As I mentioned in Part 1, the last big Ed Ruscha show here was the traveling retrospective, The Works of Ed Ruscha, which came to the Whitney Museum in 1982! ↩

NoteWorthy PhotoBook of 2024: LaToya Ruby Frazier: Monuments of Solidarity

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Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava.

The NighthawkNYC.com NoteWorthy PhotoBook of 2024: LaToya Ruby Frazier: Monuments of Solidarity, Published by the Museum of Modern Art

When I met her at the Museum of Modern Art on May 10th, at the Preview of her stunning early mid-career retrospective, I told Ms. Frazier her book, LaToya Ruby Frazier: Monuments of Solidarity, was my NoteWorthy PhotoBook of the Year. Yes, the year. Even though we’re barely half way through 2024 as I write this and there are still six full months to go). With all due respect to all the books not yet released as well as those I have not yet seen, Ms. Frazier  gets my 2024 Trophy as most recommended PhotoBook for her powerful & urgently important book, published to accompany and expand on the show of the same name. Frankly, she deserves a medal for the work she has done.

LaToya Ruby Frazier proudly showing me her new book, Monuments of Soilidarity at MoMA, May 10, 2024

Having begun taking Photographs at 16, she seemed to find her voice almost immediately. “I had decided when I was a teenager that I had to make work that was socially and politically conscious1,” she said.

Auspicious beginnings. The Notion of Family, 2016.

Her early work focused on 3 generations of her family and life in her hometown of Braddock, PA in her debut PhotoBook, The Notion of Family, in 2016, which announced her arrival to the world in memorable fashion. She subsequently turned her attention to the coalminers in the Borinage, Belgium, in And From the Coaltips a Tree Will Rise, in 2017. Returning the U.S., she documented the closing of the G.M. plant in Lordstown, Ohio in The Last Cruze, 2019, and the man-made water crisis in Flint, Michigan in Flint Is Family In Three Acts, 2022 in book form. All four books are NoteWorthy in their own right.

MoMA, May 12, 2024

Monuments of Solidarity is an overview of LaToya Ruby Frazier’s work to date in what is a Show of the Year candidate along with Käthe Kollwitz, which happens to be installed right next to Monuments of Solidarity at MoMA. Monuments takes the viewer right up to the work shown in her most recent NYC gallery show, More Than Conquerors: A Monument for Community Health Workers of Baltimore, Maryland, 2021-22, which I wrote about here. The piece, which consists of 18 Inkjet panels on IV stands, was recently fittingly acquired by the forward-looking Baltimore Museum.

Partial installation view, More Than Conquerors: A Monument for Community Health Workers of Baltimore, Maryland, 2021-22, as installed at MoMA May 12, 2024. Each piece is in 2 parts. On the right-hand panel is a text written by the subject of her Photo on the left panel. You can see it installed at Gladstone Gallery in my look at it here.

There are a lot of great Artists in this country. You have your list. I have mine. There are also a lot of important Artists working here today. One thing that sets LaToya Ruby Frazier apart, in my view, is that, in addition to her poignant Photography, she brings her subjects right into her work. Though hers is the overall vision, the results feel collaborative. This serves to make the results unlike most of what’s come before.

Installation view. Flint Is Family section. May 12, 2024 including more compelling texts from her subjects accompanying her Photos.

After posing for the picture with her book, she asked me what I thought of her show. I told her I was very moved by the Photos she took with and about her Grandmother, now well-known images from her instant classic The Notion of Family. In them we see the Artist’s vision and talent were stunningly present from an early age, as if she was born with a camera in her hand, while we also get insights into her and her family’s life in her hometown. Braddock, PA, which in turn fueled her passion to inspire change and to right wrongs.

UPMC Braddock Hospital and Holland Avenue Parking Lot, 2011. The community hospital in ruins, where her grandmother passed.

After we see the passing of her Grandmother, the show took an immediate turn and from then on was focused on depicting crises effecting “everyday” citizens, working class people, and issues of race. 

MoMA, May 10, 2024

Monuments of Solidarity is not only a “PhotoBook.” It delves deeply into its subjects in a way I find every bit as powerful as her Photographs are. This is evidence of LaToya’s extraordinary way with people. Watching her at MoMA, she took the time to have an actual moment with everyone she encountered. Even me (we’d never met).

LaToya Ruby Frazier Takes on Levis, 2011, Stills from the Video which premiered on Art21. LaToya took issue with Levi’s after they featured her hometown, Braddock, PA, in an “Everybody’s Work Is Equally Important” ad campaign. As part of the campaign, Levi’s  opened a public Photo Workshop in SoHo. In response, LaToya put on a pair of Levi’s and in a performance in front of the Levi’s Photo Workshop, preceded to destroy them while wearing them. The intense Video is looped in the show. From the book, Monuments of Solidarity.

LaToya Ruby Frazier, the person, makes every bit as good, and memorable, an impression as her work does, though the intensity we see in pieces like her incredible Levi’s Performance Video remained under the surface.

MoMA, May 10, 2024

I think her people skills, which isn’t the right term for someone who is as genuine as Mr. Frazier is…make that her humanity, is a central reason why her Art is so powerful and so direct, project after project. LaToya gets to the heart of the issue and speaks to why it is important- for those directly involved, and for all of us, like very few Artists working today can.

Partial installation view. The Last Cruze, 2019 (recently acquired by MoMA), looks at the last Chevy Cruze to be made in Lordstown, Ohio after G.M. halted production and closed the plant, throwing all the workers out of their jobs.

Ms. Frazier’s work is compared by some to that of the F.S.A. (Farm Services Administration) Photographers of the 1930s, including Dorothea Lange. As I ‘ve showed, one thing of many that sets her work apart is that she foregrounds the experiences of her subjects right alongside her Photographs in texts they authored; something the FSA Artists didn’t do. In fact, I can’t think of any Artist who has done it as consistently as LaTory Ruby Frazier has.

On this spread from The Last Cruze PhotoBook the subjects of Photos accompany them in pieces they wrote.

She gives many, maybe event most, of the actual people she depicts in her projects, their own voice. Quite often their words take up more space in her books and in this exhibition than her Photos do! I can’t say I’ve ever seen that before, either. In the literal sense, her work truly is a collection of  “moments of solidarity” between Artist and subject.

Entrance to at MoMA as seen on May 10, 2024. The show is up through July 20th.

Two asides- Two coincidences struck me while preparing this piece. First, LaToya Ruby Frazier – Monuments of Soilidarity is installed right across the hall from the equally terrific Käthe Kollwitz at MoMA. Walking through one, and then the other, it was impossible for me to ignore how much in common they share. I wish I had asked LaToya what she made of Ms. Kollwitz’s show. Both Artists have made the “Art of social purpose” the center of their work.

“I have no right to withdraw from the responsibility of being an advocate. It is my duty to voice the sufferings of men, the never-ending sufferings heaped mountain-high.” Käthe Kollwitz, 1867-1945, 2.

Her first major retrospective at an NYC museum (How is that possible?) makes an open and shut case for Käthe Kollwitz as one of the major Artists of her time, something that has been well-known in Germany and elsewhere, making it past time for the rest of the world to catch up.

Preparing this piece also reminded me of another young woman Artist who I selected as my NoteWorthy Art Book of 2024: Es Devlin. Though they’re from different parts of the world, and work in different mediums, they’re both making extraordinary inroads into the world with their work. As I wrote in my look at Es’s book, An Atlas of Es Devlin, she’s garnered unheard of media acclaim. LaToya was just named one of Time’s “100 Most Influential People of 2024.” That’s pretty amazing, of course, but I bet it doesn’t come with a cool Owl statuette!  ; )

Woman of Steel Button Pin, 2017

“Woman of Steel” reads the button on the cover. Though she’s not a steelworker, she could easily wear one and it would completely suit her in the literal sense.

*-Soundtrack for this piece is “Poverty” by Yemi Alade, from her album, Woman of Steel, fittingly, performed here live-

NighthawkNYC.com has been entirely self-funded & ad-free for over 8 1/2 years, during which 320 full-length pieces have been published! If you’ve found it worthwhile, PLEASE donate by PayPal 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. “Latoya Ruby Frazier Takes on Levi’s,” Art21 ↩
  2. As quoted, here. ↩

Ed Ruscha’s Wall Rockets

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.

This is Part 2 of my look at Ed Ruscha/Now Then at MoMA. Part 1 is here, Part 3 is here.

From the late 1950s, through the early 1960s Ed Ruscha made regular trips back and forth between Oklahoma City, where he grew up, and L.A., his adopted home since the late 1950s. In 19621, he Photographed the gas stations that caught his eye on these journeys with his trusty Yashika Twin-reflex camera, taking 60 or 70 Photographs2. In an interview in 1973 he said, “What used to belong to the Navaho and Apache Indians now belongs to the white man and he’s got gas stations out there. So, I started seeing it as cultural curiosities.”

“I’d always wanted to make a book of some kind.”

He continues. “When I was in Oklahoma I got a brainstorm in the middle of the night to do this little book called Twentysix Gasoline Stations. I knew the title. I knew it would be photographs of twenty-six gasoline stations3.” “The first book came out of a play with words. The title came before I even thought about the pictures. I like the word ‘gasoline’ and I like the specific quality of ‘twenty-six4.'”  “Months went into the planning of that. I could have saved myself a lot of trouble by loosening up. You know, not gotten so concerned with how I wanted the thing to look. I changed the form about fifty times at the printer’s5.” He self-published Twentysix Gasoline Stations in 1963 (although the title page states 1962).

You’re looking at a revolution. Twentysix Gasoline Stations, 1963, revolutionized the Artist book, the PhotoBook, and street-side Phtography, with unique design, turning gas station Photography into a genre in the process. This copy was hanging for visitors to peruse, which was somewhat surprising as it’s now a rare book- even this second edition copy is worth hundreds of dollars. Knowing all of it from reproductions, this was the first time I was able to page through an actual copy of it. Pictures in this piece are thumbnails. Click on any for full size.

It’s an Artist’s book/PhotoBook whose influence is now incalculable.

Published in an edition of 400 copies, a case can be made that it ‘s the most influential PhotoBook of the contemporary period after Robert Frank’s The Americans (which the Artist acknowledges as an influence). Twentysix Gasoline Stations, with its “industrial” look and feel stood at odds with the frequently hand-made Artist’s book norm to the time. Virtually every aspect of the Artist’s book was reimagined, from the typography and text layout on the cover to the sparseness of the interior contents, with a lack of text save for image titles.

Believe it or not, this is one of the most influential Photographs in Modern & Contemporary Photography. STANDARD, ARMADILLO, TX, perhaps the key image in Twentysix Gasoline Stations, went on to have multiple lives of its own, inspiring numerous Ed Ruscha Paintings, Drawings & Prints, as well as the work of other Artists.

Speaking of the end result, he said-

“I realized that for the first time this book had an inexplicable thing I was looking for, and that was a kind of a “Huh?” That‘s what I’ve always worked around. All it is is a device to disarm somebody with my particular message6.”

Having immersed myself in PhotoBooks for the past 7 years, and Art books most of my life, it’s impossible for me to overstate the influence Twentysix Gasoline Stations has had, and continues to have, on the Art world. It turned Art & PhotoBook creation and publishing on its head, rewriting what a book could be and who could make one. He’s said he meant the pictures to be “like a collection of readymades7,” a term and genre Marcel Duchamp put on the Art map. Still, it received a mixed reaction when it was released, including famously being rejected by the Library of Congress.

Standard Station, Amarillo, TX, 1963, Oil on canvas, 64 15/16 x 121 13/16 inches. The “locomotive” compositional device, seen in Large Trademark with Eight Spotlights, 1962, in Part 1, returns, splitting the composition in two, just the beginning of what’s fascinating about this.

“I would say I came to painting through photography,” Ed Ruscha8

The STANDARD, ARMADILLO, TX, Photograph begat the Standard Station, Amarillo, TX Painting in 1963. Obviously, the Photo just shown has been reworked, reimagined, or he based this on another Photo. Whatever the case may be, the resulting composition seen here would subsequently take many forms and become iconic. Standard Station, Ten Cent Western Being Torn in Half, below, followed a year later.The Paintings begat Standard Station, Amarillo, TX Prints, with Standard Station, Amarillo, TX Drawings being created along the way. So ubiquitous did they become that gas station Paintings and gas station Photography are now, basically, his genres. Sooner or later, everyone who shoots or Paints a gas station is going to be compared to Ed Ruscha. Many, like Vik Muniz, openly acknowledge the influence.

What strikes me are the abstract elements, like the selective detailing- you can read the prices on the gas pumps, but detail disappears on everything behind them, creating a surreal experience (the “realistic” gas pumps offset against the featureless building behind them), under that big red sign whose white lettering, offset against the engulfing darkness, feels bold.

Standard Station, Ten Cent Western Being Torn in Half, 1964, Oil on canvas, 65 x 121 1/2 inches. Mr. Ruscha has likened  the comic flying off the canvas to the upper right to a “coda” in Music. For me, it looks like debris, garbage, pollution. In this piece, the featureless building has light and shadows added to it. Once again, the numbers and text on the gas pumps are very legible.

At the time, Ed Ruscha shot them, gas stations were bastions of the new found freedom of the open road and the catalyst of the massive post-war westward exodus that the Artist, himself, became a part of. Over time, gas stations would be seen differently as the toll of pollution and environmental decay mounted.

Ed Ruscha’s second most famous Artist book/PhotoBook. A copy of the legendary Every Building on the Sunset Strip, 1966, published in one long accordion fold. Ed Ruscha put a tripod on the back of a truck and went up and down Sunset Strip taking one Photo after another until he had shot every building on both sides of the street. Here, we get one direction on the top of the page, with what’s across the street synchronized and mirrored along the bottom.

Further books followed- 14 more to 1972, the most famous of which is Every Building on the Sunset Strip, 1966, another ground-breaking work. Ed Ruscha has stated that part of the reason he went west after high school, instead of east, was because of the glamour of L.A. Here, he shows the “glamour” of the famous Sunset Strip in all its “glory.” Then, in 1973, he shot all 12 miles of Hollywood Blvd. In 2004, he reshot Hollywood Blvd in color, and paired with the 1972 images, they became the book THEN & NOW in 2005. It’s one example of Ed Ruscha combining his love of the effects of time with revisiting his past subjects.

In all the acclaim he receives I almost never hear credit given the Artist for his exceptional Painting technique- the equal of anyone else’s of his time. Right from the start, Painting after Painting reveals sublime subtlety and under-appreciated skill.  Then Now provided a glorious chance to study his, often large, Paintings up close and marvel at his skill and taste. It also provides the extremely rare chance to see works of the same subject side by side, particularly two of his famous Standard Gasoline Station Paintings.

Shows present once-in-a-lifetime opportunities to see great works united from distant parts of the globe for a brief time. That’s why I waited over an hour for the crowds to part to get this shot. More than likely, I’ll never see these two great Standard Stations together again. Both of these also feature the “speeding locomotive” compositional device seen in the Large Trademark Painting, which adds to the somewhat surreal overall effect, wonder and mystery.

Further to the Large Trademark Painting, Ed Ruscha also began Painting the sights of L.A., which again seems to be his domain to the point that I can’t think of anyone who Painted the city before he did. (I’m sure there were. Right?)

“Being in Los Angeles has had little or no effect on my work. I could have done it anywhere.” Ed Ruscha, Leave Any Information at the Signal, Statement in “West Coast Style”

Los Angeles County Museum on Fire, 1965-8, 53 1/2 x 133. 1/2 inches. Fun fact- Guess where Ed Ruscha/Now Then reopened on April 7, 2024 after closing at MoMA? You’re looking at it.

Los Angeles County Museum on Fire, 1965-8, like most of Ed Ruscha’s work, has been the subject of endless conjecture. Over the years, the Artist has made a few statements about it, including this one, “… There’s no great message here. It’s just a picture to look at9.” That might be hard to believe. After graduating college, he took that trip to Europe I mentioned in Part 1, and came away disappointed at the lack of Contemporary Art on view in the museums. Back home, things weren’t much better. Contemporary Art was slow to gain admission to the hallowed halls of institutions here. Is it a stretch to think this was somewhere on his mind when he Painted this? I tend to think it was in there somewhere. The Watts riots had recently taken place. The Now Then Catalogue has this to say about it-

“Ruscha’s characteristic denial of content ignores the fact that not far from his studio in mid-August 1965, just a few months after the inauguration of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the city of Los Angeles was burning10.”

Ed Ruscha said, “The plain truth behind the Watts riots is that the riots themselves were good and beneficial and healthy regardless of loss of life. The Watts riots nationalized sympathy for a gigantic racial injustice11.”

He soon set a number of other sites on fire in his Paintings, including the an Amarillo Standard Station (which wasn’t in the show), and Norm’s, which was.

Norm’s, La Cienega, on Fire, 1964, Oil and pencil on canvas. The work features a complete lack of detail, save for the letters “ORMS” on the sign.  It’s interesting how the flames follow the “locomotive” line. Without those letters (which themselves are meaningless without the title), this Painting would be a completely abstract composition of shapes and lines.

For someone who’s so closely associated with L.A., and has been for over 60 years, it’s strange that some of his most well-known work shows L.A. landmarks being destroyed or in ruins. For example, he has continued to “destroy” the Hollywood sign, in different ways, over and over again throughout his career. Still, his fame continued to rise as did his association with the city. In spite of all this (and possibly because of it), in 1978, a six-story(!) tall mural (also referred to as the “Ed Ruscha Monument”) of the Artist was created by the Artist Kent Twitchell, for who Ed Ruscha was “the unorthodox hero of the art world.” Would anyone else be able to “destroy” a city’s landmarks and then become seen as the figurehead of that city’s Art community with a monument created for them? It didn’t happen for Nero. Unlike the emperor, Ed Ruscha didn’t actually destroy anything, except maybe in his mind and on some large canvases.

Rancho, 1968, Oil on canvas, which looks like it was made with a liquid, surrounded by Fire, Sin, Rustic Pines, each 1967, Gunpowder on paper, from left to right.

This calls to mind another thing Ed Ruscha doesn’t get enough credit for: innovation. In the 3rd, 4th and 5th galleries we see pieces made out of strange and unprecedented materials. Unhappy with the possibilities of paint or pencil, the Artist began exploring the possibilities of Drawing with gunpowder! The results, as seen above, are incredible. He found he had more control with it. In 1969, the Artist began going further, using unconventional materials in his Stains Portfolio of seventy-five substances ranging from L.A. tap water to egg yolk.

Installation view of Chocolate Room, 1971/2023, Chocolate on paper sheets.

His Chocolate Room for the United States Pavilion at the 1970 Venice Biennale, and recreated in a room of its own in Now Then, followed. After that, he began using a number of these “other” materials in his Word and Phrase Paintings.

Cotton Puffs, 1974. Egg yolk on moiré fabric, 36 × 40″

Along with this constant experimentation came the inevitable failure, like the egg yokes in Cotton Puffs, 1974, fading quickly. Ed has been remarkably cool with these. Accepting them for what they are12. (And probably learning in the process.) Each has its place in his oeuvre, with all the examples on view seeming to hold up remarkably well over the years given they are experiments. By the mid-70s, he had gone back to pastel on paper13. Though the materials experiments were short-lived, it led me to peruse the 7 volumes of the Ed Ruscha: Catalogue Raisonne of the Paintings, published by Steidl (which is a bit ironic- or fitting- because Steidl has published the work of any number of Photographers who include gas stations in their work, including the entirety of the 3-volume set, Gas Stop, by David Freund), which revealed that this insatiable exploration of materials was only the tip of his creativity iceberg. Paging through it (which only goes up to 2011 at this point), I was amazed to discover that though he has created a number of works with ostensibly the same subject, no two are identical. The differences are obvious or subtle. Still, this speaks to Ed Ruscha’s seemingly endless powers of invention and refusal to repeat himself verbatim. I was stunned when I discovered this, which was completely unexpected (though I should have been tipped off by what his STANDARD STATION, ALBUQUERQUE Photograph became). Seeing this range and variety gave me a glimpse of insight into just what may be keeping him going and creating since the late 1950s.

Wall Rockets, 2000, Acrylic on canvas

Perhaps THE highlight of Ed Ruscha/Now Then at MoMA for me was the chance to see 6 of the 10 Paintings from the Artist’s Course of Empire series. As I’ve looked at his work over the past 24 years of this century, these have fascinated me as much as any other work by Mr. Ruscha. Created for, and then debuted, at the 2005 Venice Biennalle, they subsequently travelled to NYC where they were on display at the Whitney in a show of the same name, the last important (though small) Ed Ruscha show in NYC until Now Then. Somehow, I missed them there, so seeing 6 might be as close as I get to seeing them all.

3 works from Ed Ruscha’s Blue Collar series, 1993, on the 3 facing walls.

Occupying the large, penultimate gallery of the show, the Course of Empire Paintings strike me as serving as a touchstone for a number of Ed Ruscha themes. They also eerily presage what has been going on in much of NYC (and perhaps elsewhere) this decade, with a number of stores and businesses closing due to Covid, then more closing due to the realities of our post-Covid (if we are post-Covid) economy, many have changed hands in a short time. Others remain for rent. The shape, perspectives and lack of detailing on the one-story  buildings I find reminiscent of Standard Station, Ten Cent Western Being Torn in Half, seen earlier. In each, our point of view is the same, and the same as in that Standard Station Painting- they are seen from below.

At the opposite end of the gallery, the same scenes reappear in his Course of Empire series, 2005, now in color, though right and left are flipped. (The scene on the right wall is that depicted on the left wall in Blue Collar Photo, above this one. The scene on the left wall is the scene shown on the right wall of the Blue Collar series above this one.)

The series evolved over a period of 13 years, with Ed Ruscha Painting the 5 black & white pieces, titled Blue Collar, in 1992-

Blue Collar Trade School, 1992, Acrylic on canvas. The only multi-story structure in the series.

Returning to the subject and the same sites  in 2005, this time in color and showing the effects of time passing.

The Old Trade School Building, 2005, Acrylic on canvas

Perhaps, his most subtly powerful series, their under-stated compositions lead to open-ended interpretations.

Installation view of the complete Course of Empire, by Thomas Cole, 1834-36, as seen at The Met’s Thomas Cole’s Journey in 2018. The rise and fall of civilization as seen from the same place, with the same distinctive mountain peak appearing in each Painting.

Based on, and in homage to, Thomas Cole’s legendary Course of Empire series, 1834-6, (which I wrote about here), they are another instance of Ruscha revisiting earlier work, his Blue Collar series from 1992. These also highlight that alongside the humor in any number of his pieces, running parallel, is a real depth of concern. Concern for the country, the world, the environment.

Psycho Spaghetti Western #7, 2010-11, Acrylic on canvas

“It’s all just rape of the land for profit these days. It’s fairly sick. Southern California is all just one big city now. But what do you say about progress? … So something’s got to give, and the landscape’s the first thing that gives….There is a certain flavor of decadence that inspires me. And when I drive into some sort of industrial wasteland in America, with the themeparks and warehouses, there’s something saying something to me. It’s a mixture of those things that gives me some sense of reality and moves me along as an artist,” Ed Ruscha 14.

Taking full advantage of having such a long career, the Artist has revisited past themes, and places, fairly often to the point that it’s a running theme in his work. Change over time…for the better, or worse, is left to the viewer to decide. Ostensibly set in L.A., the structures in Blue Collar/Course of Empire could be literally anywhere. As such they have a universality to them (as do a number of other 21st century Ruscha’s) that sets them apart from his purely L.A. work, like his Hollywood sign pieces.

Our Flag, 2017, Acrylic on canvas. The last work in the show.

Thomas Cole influencing Ed Ruscha’s Blue Collar & Course of Empire series started me thinking about other possible influences on his work. I touched on some in Part 1. In Part 3, I’ll take a closer look at them, and then flip that coin over.

Part 3 is here. 

*- Soundtrack for this piece is “L.A. Woman” by The Doors, one of the ultimate L.A. bands, from the 1971 album of the same name. (Narrowly beating out “California Girls” by the Beach Boys from Summer Days (And Summer Nights), 1965.) Ed Ruscha was into “car culture” before moving to L.A., and after, among other things he has in common with the #1 L.A. band of its time. Notice the gas station Jim Morrison, “another lost angel,” to quote his lyric, stops in to about half way through-

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  1. Ed Ruscha: Catalogue Raisonne of the Paintings, Vol 7, P.476 ↩
  2. E.R., Tate, P.30 ↩
  3. Willoughby Sharp, ‘“… a kind of a Huh?”, An Interview with Edward Ruscha’, Avalanche, no.7, Winter/ Spring 1973, p.30. ↩
  4. ER, Tate, P. 31 ↩
  5. https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/edward-ruscha-1882/ed-ruscha-and-art-everyday ↩
  6. Here. ↩
  7. Reading Ed Ruscha, P.50 ↩
  8. Ed Ruscha, Photographer, P.7 ↩
  9. Ed Ruscha quoted in Ed Ruscha/Now Then Exhibition Catalog, P.21 ↩
  10. Ed Ruscha/Now Then Exhibition Catalog, P.21 ↩
  11. Ed Ruscha, Leave Any Information at the Signal, P.5 ↩
  12. E.R., Tate, P.65 ↩
  13. Ed Ruscha/Now Then, P.170 ↩
  14. Leave Any Information at the Signal, P.18 ↩

Ed Ruscha’s Head Scratchers

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

Show seen: Ed Ruscha/Now Then @MoMA

Who doesn’t like the Art of Ed Ruscha?

Installation view of the entrance, September 14, 2023. Images in this piece are thumbnails. Click any picture for full size.

Walking through the crowds at MoMA’s winter blockbuster, Ed Ruscha/Now Then over my six long visits bookending a terrible, six-week illness, I saw smiles as visitors moved from piece to piece, yet I couldn’t help but wonder how many of them felt they “understood” his Art. While humor undoubtedly plays a part in the craft of an Artist who knows you catch more flies with honey than vinegar, however they appear at first glance, his work usually leaves me scratching my head.

Returning to look at it again and again, that his work says something different to me every time I look at it has kept Ed Ruscha among my favorite Contemporary Artists. Judging from the turnout at MoMA, I’m far from alone in that. Having the chance to explore, and be mystified by, 200 pieces of his Art in Now Then from the, approximately, SIXTY-SEVEN YEARS(!) he’s been making it proved an all-too-rare chance to take a good hard look and try to get to the bottom of the mystery.

I Don’t Want No Retro Spective, 1979, Pastel on paper. The catalog for the last Ed Rusha retrospective in 1982(!) is also known by the Ruscha on the cover of its catalog, I Don’t Want No Retro Spective, though the show’s title was THE WORKS OF ED RUSCHA. 

“All too rare,” as in Now Then is the first Ed Ruscha retrospective here since 1982, (and so mine, too): over FORTY YEARS ago!1 The gap between them is another head scratcher given how popular Ed Ruscha’s Art is. The title Ed Ruscha/Now Then can be taken as a reference to the Artist’s penchant for revisiting his subjects over time, as well as the fact the show includes old and recent work, or a chance to see his older work now. It’s also a rare retrospective of a West Coast Artist who came to prominence in the 1960s mounted on the East Coast. Bruce Conner didn’t live to see his at MoMA like Ed Ruscha has. Ed Kienholz, and Mr. Conner’s friend, Jay DeFeo, among others, are still waiting for their East Coast retrospective.

Installation view from just inside the entrance of the first gallery looking into the second. Boss, 1961, the famous Large Trademark with Eight Spotlights, 1962, and the infamous OOF, 1962-3, left to right, all Oil on canvas.

Walking through it, I became particularly fascinated by how his style(s) developed, and how Edward Joseph Ruscha IV became Ed Ruscha, one of the most influential Artists in the world among Modern & Contemporary Artists, if not THE most influential, at this point in time.

Oklahoma-E, 1962, Pencil, colored pencil and charcoal on paper

Born in Omaha in 1937, his family moved to Oklahoma City when Ed was 5. Early on, he had a passion for comics and a love of typography, particularly as it appeared in commercial publications. All of these are combined in Oklahoma-E from 1962, a seminal year in his early career. His initial desire was to become a Commercial Artist, and it was towards that end that he left OKC after graduating high school to head to L.A. with a friend in a lowered 1950 Ford, to study it. He chose to go west rather than east because of its energy, glamour, and its “hot rods and custom cars2.” Unable to get into his chosen school, he was accepted at Chouinard Art Institute (later Cal Arts, where Henry Taylor would study in the 1990s). His teachers, disciples of Abstract Expressionism, “wanted to collapse the whole art process into one act3.’’ “It (Abstract Expressionism) was, in his opinion, ‘a solid way of thinking…If you think about the paintings that were done in the 1950s, I find them overwhelming, nothing but quality…It was a very powerful time in art.’ However, ‘…within AbEx there was no room for my ideas4.'” While this frustrated him, they did succeed in getting him to change his focus from Commercial Art to Fine Art, which we can all be grateful for. After Now Then, I wonder if they accomplished more.

While in school in 1957 he had an epiphany.

One of the most extraordinary works of the 1950s. Jasper Johns, Target with Four Faces, 1955, Encaustic on newspaper and cloth over canvas surrounded by four tinted-plaster faces in wood box with hinged front. Seen in Jasper Johns: Mind/Mirror at the Whitney in 2021.

“The breakthrough he sought came in 1957, when he spotted a small black-and-white repro of Jasper Johns’s 1955 Target with Four Faces in the Feb/Mar 1957 issue of Print Magazine. Encountering Johns’s painting was, he said, an ‘atomic bomb’ in his training, ‘a stranger fruit’ that he ‘saw as something that didn’t seem to follow the history of art. My teachers said it was not art. ‘I didn’t need to see the colors or the size…’ ‘I was especially taken with the fact that it was symmetrical, which was just absolutely taboo in art school- you didn’t make anything symmetrical…Art school was modernism, it was asymmetry, it was giant brush strokes…it was all these other things that were gestural rather than cerebral. So I began moving to things that had more of a premeditation5.’”

Dvision, 1962, Mimeograph on paper, One of five Prints by five Artists in the Portfolio issued in conjunction with the New Painting of Common Objects show.

That has continued to this day. Along the way, he and others (including Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein and James Rosenquist), built on what Johns, Rauschenberg and Marcel Duchamp had started: the “next thing” after Abstract Expressionism, an Art based in the recognizable, the familiar, the every day. Some called it “pop.” Personally, I see nothing but danger in trying to box Ed Ruscha (who has consistently eschewed boxes).

In fact, one word comes to my mind over and over again as I look at his Art over time: abstract. If I were going to use two words to describe it they would be “premeditated abstraction.” Look at Division, above. It contains what would become Ed Ruscha trademarks- text, typography, and images, combined in a way that are next to impossible for most viewers to “read.” If that’s not “abstract?” What is? Maybe his teachers would be proud after all. It was only through delving into his history, I found that 3327 Division Street was the address of his first L.A. studio6. The car might have been his. Does that mean there’s more of a backstory to it? I haven’t found it. In the end, for me this says there may, or may not, be personal meaning to some/many/even all of his Art, but, 60+ years on, they haven’t come to light. So, with Division, as with all his Art, the viewer is left to make of them what they will.

The two earliest piece in the show, SU, 1958, Oil, ink and fabric on canvas, (sixty-six years old!), left, with Dublin,, 1960, Oil and ink on canvas, right. Yes, a comma is part of the title.

Before graduating, he took hitchhiking trips that he immortalized in some of the earliest works in the show. the mysterious SU, 1958, the earliest, strikes me as a forerunner of what would come later. Even in these early works, text and imagery appear, though separately, as different elements that seem to stand apart from each other until the viewer brings them together, or creates a narrative around them, in his or her mind. These elements have continued in his work to this day, though he would soon start layering them. SU is, also, one of the relatively few of his works that refers to an actual person, the title referring to Su Hall, his girlfriend at the time.

Actual Size, 1962, Oil on canvas, 67 1/16 x 72 1/16 inches. His breakthrough work when it was included in the landmark New Paintings of Common Objects show. A Painted, flaming, “actual size” can of Spam in its lower section is accompanied by some brush marks that might be associated with Abstract Expressionism. In fact, a number of his early pieces, like Three Standard Envelopes, 1960, also include them. Given his prodigious technique, on display in this, I don’t see how these marks can be considered accidental. Jennifer Quick7 surmises these connote AbEx’s commercialization. I see them as Ruscha making this technique his own, using it in a way none of the AbEx Artists did. I also see it as an early example of the many forms that abstraction would take in his work.

A number of his early works are quite edgy, daring and ripe with a surprisingly loose use of the brush. Were these done for class to please his teachers, or…? In fact, even some later pieces, like his Stains portfolio, contains marks that seem right out of AbEx. These stands at the other end of the technical spectrum for an Artist who possesses a superb Painting technique, something he doesn’t get nearly enough credit for in my view. They also make me wonder if his AbEx disciple teachers had a bigger effect on their student than it might seem.

The rest of the gallery includes highlights of his early 1960s Word Paintings. We watch as he continued to strip away excess and refine his concept. Eventually, single words appeared alone on solid backgrounds This is interesting because he has said of his recent phrase Paintings that the backgrounds are simply that. Early on, as in Actual Size, they appear to be more.

Vienna, Austria, 1961. This striking Photo was in a vitrine in the show, which prevented my getting a decent picture. This image of it comes from the book Ed Ruscha and Photography, P.48

After  he graduated college, Ed spent 10 months on an extensive tour of Europe. While he reports not being impressed with the museums (among other things, he was disappointed by the lack of Contemporary Art), he took note of quite a bit of what he saw while out and about, particularly the street signs, with their foreign words, different design & typographies. He Drew and Painted a number of these, but he also put the new Yashica twin-lens reflex camera he was required to get in one of his classes to good use, taking a number of interesting Photos, beginning a revolutionary career in the medium in the process. Back home in fall, 1961, he set to work. Less than a year later his work was included in the landmark show, New Paintings of Common Objects at the Pasadena Art Museum, along with that of Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Wayne Thiebaud and others, and so-called “pop” Art was born. Ed Ruscha has consistently rejected being boxed, though he rode on the coattails of the “movement,” and the word is still used in describing his work, ignoring the visual evidence.

The first gallery concludes with an infamous work. Does this look familiar?

Ummm…It might not be what you might think it is. It’s a detail of the center of the target in Jasper Johns’s, Target with Four Faces, 1955, shown earlier. Now, look at this-

Yes! One of the two “Os” in Ed Ruscha’s OOF, 1962 (reworked 1963). Just five years after he saw Target with Four Faces, Ed Ruscha Painted the above. Coincidence? Homage? Fallout from that “atomic bomb going off in my training?” My feeling is the visual evidence is pretty strong for making a case for any or all three.

Hello! I’ve never appeared on NighthawkNYC over its 8 1/2 years, except in my self-portrait in the Banner (and a picture in my last piece, here, from the distant past). Until now. I’m introducing myself to NHNYC readers in front of a Painting I have a personal connection to: OOF, 1962-3, Oil on canvas, 71 1/2 x 67 inches on Ed Ruscha/Now Then’s final day, January 15, 2024. As for my “personal connection” to OOF? Very, very few know. My thanks to the lady who graciously agreed to take this.

Personally, it’s hard for me not to think there’s an influence; in the colors, the shape of the circle/”Os.” Even if it’s subconscious. Looking at both of these works now, they’re both revolutionary in their way. The Johns has been discussed at length over the past 60 years. Does anyone else think OOF is a revolutionary work, let alone a masterpiece? I believe it’s both. Revolutionary? It’s possibly the first time (as far as I know) that a Painting features a “word” that Merriam-Webster categorizes as an “interjection,” and not an actual “word” per se. I also believe it’s an “alt masterpiece.” Seriously. The composition, colors, font, placement of the text are all perfect, belying Ed Ruscha’s mastery of typography and graphic design, with the sublime taste that would be a hallmark of his work. OOF stands as the pinnacle of his early word Paintings in my view. Oof is a word, if it is one, that defies concrete understanding, making it a perfect (unofficial) conclusion of sorts to the series. Merriam-Webster says Oof is an interjection “used to express discomfort, surprise, or dismay8.” They point out “the first known use of the word was in 1777,” which I find hilarious. How do they know? Did they consult an Oofologist? They further define an interjection as “an ejaculatory utterance usually lacking grammatical connection9.”

Oof!

OOF everywhere around town. A first step to a better world! I yelled “OOF,” but he didn’t stop.

As such it seems to me that OOF stands as an outlier among the single words Ed Ruscha chose as the subjects of his early 1960s Word Paintings (BOSS, HONK, ACE, SMASH, FLASH and NOISE, shown below, et al) because it is quite abstract, and therefore, a jumping off point for what was to come. I wish I had asked viewers what the Painting said to them. Having owned it for 61 years, MoMA is well aware of its mysterious appeal. No doubt that is why the museum chose to emblazon OOF all around town as the focus of their show marketing.

Noise, Pencil, Broken Pencil, Cheap Western, 1963, Oil and wax on canvas, 71 1/4 x 67 inches. There are two Painted pencils in the piece, and lo and behold someone left another one on the floor, behind the left stanchion. I resisted the urge to move it for effect for this picture. Maybe, I should have…

Along with abstraction, it seems to me there are surreal elements in his work. Perhaps no single word Painting has these abstract/surreal qualities than Noise, Pencil, Broken Pencil, Cheap Western, 1963, which also represents an evolution. Ed Ruscha has long considered it one of his best Paintings[3, Per the wall card.]. In it, the mystery of the word is added to with three very realistic images, close to its own edge. Unusual for a Painting, or Art, it leaves the center, the focus of most Art, empty except for the background color. Most of the previous Word Paintings centered the featured word. As such, it’s both unique and a precursor of other works that combine words and images. It’s also both abstract, thought it depicts realistic objects, and surreal. If I read it from the left, the whole pencil lies quietly seemingly in mid-air. The word “NOISE,” another monosyllabic word, grows until it reaches the right side (again, like a speeding train) where it hovers above the broken pencil. The cheap western seems to be hovering in the air, too, like the left-hand pencil, where it wouldn’t make noise until it lands, which it might be close to doing. The Artist has created “action” from three still objects and a word.

In the catalog for that last major Ruscha retrospective there’s this-

“The broken pencil calls to mind the incident Ruscha has referred to a number of times in interviews when as a child in parochial school he was regularly rapped on the knuckles with a pencil by a nun who caught him misbehaving in class. Is the pencil, then, simultaneously a symbol of expression and repression10?”

If this is the case, though Mr. Ruscha has not said that this incident is what’s depicted here, my reading of it wonders if the “Cheap Western,” i.e. the comic book which appears to be reaching the bottom of the piece, was struck from his hand when he was caught reading it in class, being a big fan of comics at this age, the broken pencil having been cracked over his hand. It’s also, simultaneously, an abstract and a surreal composition. As many have pointed out, it also leaves the center bare. It carries forward his use of the single word, while also taking it on a new tangent.

Bouncing Marbles, Bouncing Apple, Bouncing Olive, 1969, (not in the show) has much in common with Noise, Pencil, Broken Pencil, Cheap Western from six years earlier. One of countless Ed Ruschas that feel surreal to me. Here, he “sugar coats” the surrealism by using harmless objects like marbles and an apple on a welcoming green background. Leaving the olive, the looming black, and the fact that the marbles & apple are bouncing to stir up our imaginations, making the work decidedly not a “still life.” *- Photographer unknown.

Noise, Pencil, Broken Pencil, Cheap Western is another one-Painting revolution, like OOF was. Though both were only followed-up indirectly, as in Bouncing Marbles, Bouncing Apple, Bouncing Olive, 1969. Now, look at this-

Salvador Dali, the legendary Surrealist, Open Field with Ball in Centre and Mountains in Rear, Study for the Disney film Destino, 1946, Oil on masonite. Influence? Seen in MoMA’s catalog for their show Dali & Film.

Works like Noise, Pencil, Broken Pencil, Cheap Western and Bouncing Marbles, Bouncing Apple, Bouncing Olive (and other works that include marbles and olives) are so different from anything that’s come before in his work. Yet, as time went on, they are joined by many works that while they depict recognizable objects are very abstract, even surreal, including his recent Tom Sawyer Paintings. Most of them have no words, and taken as a group they now form a sizable part of his oeuvre. For my part, I trace them all back to Noise, Pencil, Broken Pencil, Cheap Western from 1963.

Large Trademark with Eight Spotlights, 1962, Oil on canvas 66 9/10 x 133 1/10 inches. An early L.A.-inspired work, like most of Ed Ruscha’s work its “meaning” is nebulous. At the time he Painted this, the famous Film studio was in decline and going through layoffs. One reading might be a comment on fleeting fame about to fade out, or like his PhotoBook, Every Building on the Sunset Strip, 1966, possibly a hard realization for the Artist who relocated from Oklahoma City, that glamour is not all it appears to be from afar. It’s also a work that is reminiscent of a speeding, approaching train, a compositional device he would use again. Though it’s described as “Oil on canvas,” those are graphite lines leading to or from the vanishing point.

In 1962, L.A./Hollywood, its sites and culture began appearing in Ed Ruscha’s Art, as in Large Trademark with Eight Spotlights, which is also a precursor to his multi-word and phrase Paintings. Over the succeeding 60+ years, few if any, Artists would become more associated with Los Angeles than Ed Ruscha is and has been. From then to now, he would continue to Paint the city, and words and image would coexist in his Art, while single words largely became multiple words and, beginning in 1973, short phrases that he has continued to create to this day.

By the beginning of the second gallery of Now Then, some of the core themes of his work have been created and have already metamorphosized. This revealed the development of a working process based in an endlessly restless creative drive that would not let Ed Ruscha stay in one place for very long Artistically. What lay ahead over the next six plus decades(!) has been nothing if not the continually unexpected.

Part 2, “Ed Ruscha’s Wall Rockets,” is here. The concluding Part 3, “Ed Ruscha & The Two-Sided Coin of Influence,” is here. 

*-Soundtrack for this piece is “Down the Highway,” by a Musician who has been creating and performing for about as long as Ed Ruscha has: Bob Dylan, born May 24, 1941, 3 1/2 years after Ed Ruscha. Bob released “Down the Highway” the same year Mr. Ruscha created a number of the Paintings in this piece, on 1963’s The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan.

NighthawkNYC.com has been entirely self-funded & ad-free for over 8 years, during which 320 full-length pieces have been published! If you’ve found it worthwhile, PLEASE donate by PayPal 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. The traveling retrospective, THE WORKS OF ED RUSCHA, came to the Whitney Museum in 1982, one of five museum stops it made, when the Artist was about 45. ↩
  2. ER, Tate, P. 9 ↩
  3. Alexandra Schwartz, Ed Ruscha’s Los Angeles, P.17 ↩
  4. Alexandra Schwartz, Ed Ruscha’s Los Angeles, P.15 ↩
  5. Alexandra Schwartz, Ed Ruscha’s Los Angeles, P.15 ↩
  6. E.R. Tate, P.100 ↩
  7. in her book, Ed Ruscha: Art & Design in the 1960s ↩
  8. Here ↩
  9. Here ↩
  10. I Don’t Want No Retrospective- The Works of Ed Ruscha, P.15 ↩

Jordan Casteel: Surviving The Buzz

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Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava

Jordan Casteel, Yvonne and James II, 2021, Oil on canvas, 90 x 78 inches. Seen at The Met, June 18, 2022.

You’re a Painter. You’re 32. Your Yvonne and James II was bought by The Metropolitan Museum of Art. It’s now hanging directly opposite Kerry James Marshall’s Untitled (Studio), 2014, one of the show-stoppers in the blockbuster Kerry James Marshall: Mastry in 2017, in The Met’s largest Modern & Contemporary Art Gallery, #915. If that’s not a “Wow!,” what is?

The Baayfalls, 2017, Oil on canvas, 6’6 x 7′ 6, seen at MoMA, August 27, 2022.

Not enough? Your Painting, The Baayfalls, 2017, Oil on canvas, 6’6 x 7′ 6, Painted at about age 27, has a wall to itself on the 2nd floor lobby at MoMA, where it is part of their permanent collection.

The Baayfalls, Paint on wall, the High Line Mural for 2019-20. Yes, the trees have gotten bigger since I showed them in my Barbara Kruger piece. I LOVE trees, but move them, please.

Then, there’s this- in 2019, The Baayfalls became the High Line Mural. Ed Ruscha, Kerry James Marshall, Henry Taylor and Barbara Kruger have had Murals up on this wall before Ms. Casteel, who was all of 30 at the time. Originally scheduled to be up for a year, due to covid, it’s still there as I write.

A very rare copy of the sold out catalog for Jordan Casteel: Within Reach is now impossible to find in any condition for less than $300.00.

A year after her Mural went up, her New Museum “Retrospective” (I’m not sure you can call a show of work by a 30 year old living Artist a Retrospective, but ok), Jordan Casteel: Within Reach took NYC by storm, although not many actually got to see it because it was closed for much of its run while the pandemic devastated the City and the world. Be it through the show’s terrific catalog or its online presence, viewers got the point. The word was out.

Can you say, PHEW!? Not since the day of Jean-Michel Basquiat has a young Painter risen so far so fast. And, Jean-Michel never had a Painting of his acquired by The Met or MoMA (let alone both) during his lifetime before he died at 27. Ms. Casteel’s work was acquired by both when she was about 31.

Jennifer Packer, Jordan, 2014, Oil on canvas, 36 by 48 inches. Seen in Jennifer Packer: The Eye Is Not Satisfied With Seeing at the Whitney Museum, December, 2021.

Hold on- I’m not done with her C.V. yet! Buzz builds upon buzz. International shows followed. Last year, Jordan Casteel appeared in a Portrait of her done by her friend, Jennifer Packer, in one of the shows of the year, the Whitney Museum’s Jennifer Packer: The Eye Is Not Satisfied With Seeing. Ms. Packer Painted Jordan in her studio while they were both students at Yale in 2014. Then late last year, Jordan Casteel was named a MacArthur Fellow. She received what is called a “genius grant.”

I’m not sure anyone can imagine what experiencing ALL of this has been like for her. It’s unprecedented. Luckily, Ms. Casteel seems to have a great head on her shoulders. She decided to assess ALL of this then reassess her life and her direction. Horror of horrors, she decided to leave NYC and move to rural New York. NYC is such a big part of the Denver-born Artist’s Portraits, it’s helped her to already create one of the strongest bodies of them since Alice Neel. Like Ms. Neel, many of her subjects were found on the streets of Harlem. I wondered what direction they would now take.

Marisa, Isabel and Sage, 2022, Oil on canvas, 94 x 80 inches.

At Casey Kaplan on September 8th, I found out. In Jordan Casteel: In bloom, Ms. Casteel unveiled 9 new Paintings, each dated 2022 and each created since she relocated from NYC to “rural New York,” as the press release says. 

Morgan, 2022, Oil on canvas, 90 x 78 inches.

The group consists of some Portraits, the genre she’s, perhaps, most associated with (Within Reach was exclusively portraits), and adds some Still Lifes and Landscapes to her range. Through them all, Ms. Casteel’s work is characterized by strength. Her line, her brushstrokes, and the character of her subjects, all exude strength. I continue to be captivated by the way she renders skin.

Sunset, 2022, Oil on canvas, 50 x 40 inches

Charles White, who had a way of making his figures larger than life- monumental, comes to mind. While Ms. Casteel’s figures often have a “monumental” quality to them, she has developed entirely her own way with rendering.skin.  All the while, rendering the Black men she Paints non-sexually.

In bloom, 2022, Oil on canvas, 78 x 90 1/4 inches.

There’s also a “there/not-there” element in her work, how she leaves certain parts outlined and not detailed, going back to The Baayfalls, seen above. It takes some adjustment of the eyes on the part of the viewer to see the scene the way the Artist does, and it’s not something I can say I’ve seen many other Artists do regularly. Jennifer Packer uses it, too. Sometimes it occurs in Ms. Casteel’s backgrounds. In the landscape in bloom, above, it’s also seen in the middle ground.

Greg Tate said Jordan Casteel captures the soul of her subject. When I look at her work I see Painting that is “old beyond its years,” and I don’t mean “early maturity.” The Artist is able to recognize subjects who make compelling Portraits, then uses her skills to reflect the appearance they present to the world and the essence, the strength, of their inner selves. The end result is pretty remarkable. Even her domestic scenes have a quiet power and self-assuredness. It’s a testament, I feel, to her subjects, and herself. At Casey Jordan, the 9 Paintings on view don’t seem to miss the City at all.

Damani and Shola, 2022, Oil on canvas, 90 x 78 inches. I haven’t measured, but the large size Ms. Casteel favors in her Portraits make her subjects pretty near life-size.

It’s waaayyyy too early in Jordan Casteel’s life and career to make predictions as to where she, or her Art, are going. So far, her work has struck a nerve with the Art-going public and an ever-increasing number of curators, which will lead, I believe, to her work finding a home in most of the major museums around the world that show Contemporary Art in short order. The bigger picture is only just starting to come into focus. Over and over, the name of Alice Need comes to mind when I think about Ms. Casteel’s Portraits. The first part of her post-graduate career saw her following Ms. Neel’s footsteps in a way in Harlem creating Portraits that feel ripped from life. Now, the Artist has moved on, perhaps wanting to separate herself from those comparisons? She’s her own woman and her own Artist, as her Casey Kaplan show reminds us. It will be utterly fascinating to see how she handles the attention, the pressure, the expectations and the demand for her work going forward.

Field Balm, 2022, Oil on canvas, 36 x 30 inches.

I don’t see any of that ending any time soon.

*- Soundtrack for this piece is “Hold On” by Alabama Shakes, the debut single from Boys & Girls, 2012.

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If you’ve found it worthwhile, PLEASE donate to allow me to continue below.
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Cézanne’s Other Revolution

Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava

“I will astonish Paris with an Apple,” Paul Cézanne said. And, he did.

What came first? The Artist, or the apple? Many Painted apples & fruit before Cézanne. None created a revolution in Art with them. Self-Portrait and Apple, 1880-84, Pencil on paper. The Cézanne quote above comes from the wall card for this Drawing. It goes on to say the work “establishes an equivalency between the Artist’s head and the fruit he so often depicted.”

Ways of seeing and the Art of Drawing are two of my bigger interests in Art. Both are combined in the landmark Cézanne Drawing show which closed this week at MoMA, and was, most likely, a “once in a lifetime” show. I’ve never heard of anything close to the 250 works on paper on view in it by the French master being exhibited anywhere previously. As big a revolution as his daring approach to Art, most widely known to this point through his hugely influential Paintings, his Drawings and works on paper have been seldom exhibited. Possibly their fragility and light-sensitivity has something to do with that, though the pieces on display seemed to be in remarkably good condition. As a result, they are far lesser well-known even 115 years after the newest of them was created. Yet they take things even further, and reveal more of his remarkable & unique vision, than even his remarkable Paintings, in my view.

One of those shows I’ll long walk around in my mind, continue to think about, and be inspired by. Late masterpieces, Still Life with Blue Pot, left, Still Life with Milk Pot, Melon and Sugar Bowl, right, both 1900-6, Pencil and watercolor on paper.

As a young Musician or Artist, many pupils are taught “Master the rules, first. Then, you can break them.” In Art, the theory is to gain a firm grounding in technique, composition, color, line and form, to have something to build your own style on. In Cézanne Drawing we get to follow his evolution & creative journey over half a century.

Umm…yeah he could Draw. From early on, as seen here. Detail of Standing Male Nude: Academic Study, 1862, Pencil on paper.

Cézanne applied to attend the Ècole de Beaux Arts in Paris, though he was rejected. He proceeded to take lessons at the Atelier Suisse, where they were offered free, a studio Courbet studied at. Early critics, including the great James McNeill Whistler, thought he couldn’t Draw. Evidence of his studies of the classical tradition were on display and show otherwise.

A gallery full of Cézanne’s figure studies contains numerous works taken from his Sketchbooks that belie his daily dedication to the craft & Art of Drawing throughout his life.

He drew every day for much of the rest of his life. In the next gallery, we are treated to numerous examples of his Sculpture studies. Ah…Drawing Sculpture. Something many students, including this one, get caught up in. Its allure never lessened for Cèzanne.

After the Ecorche of Michelangelo, 1881-4, Pencil on paper, from a Sketchbook. Cèzanne kept a plaster cast of this work in his studio.

Per the wall card- “According to a friend…’To the last day of his life, every morning as a priest reads his breviary, he spent an hour drawing Michelangelo’s plaster figure from every angle.”

And here it is-

Cèzanne’s personal plaster cast of Michelangelo’s Ecorche, seen in Cezanne’s Studio in 2017!  Photograph by Joel Meyerowitz from his PhotoBook, Cezanne’s Objects, 2017.

Soon he was Drawing like this-

Page of Studies, including a Centaur after the Antique, Pencil on laid paper, 1897-82. A drastic departure from the academic Standing Male Nude, shown earlier. No part of any of this is defined by the Artist with one line. His future is coming.

He took what he learned, and used it as a jumping off point. He began to loosen up  his approach. Much experimentation followed, as we see as this very large show progresses, until “he had discovered his own personality,” as Cézanne scholar Roger Fry put it 1.

Bathers, 1900-06, Watercolor on wove paper, page from a Sketchbook that measures 7 1/16 by 9 13/16″. This late work shows how far he took his figure Drawing. Though the figures almost seem to dissolve right in front of us, then almost seeming to be vibrating en masse from a short distance. Still, the composition miraculously holds wonderfully together

He developed a style of Drawing the figure that used multiple lines to “hone in” on the form, as seen in the Page of Studies with the Centaur, just shown, and, even more radically, the Bathers, here. He called his style couillarde (ballsy)2, indicative of his “attacking” approach to every aspect of his Art. Like his early subjects seen in the first gallery.

The Murder, 1874-75, Pencil, watercolor, and gouache on paper. In this small work (5 3/4 by 6 7/8 inches), the knife is held high amidst an idyllic landscape based on a real place, with an ominous cross lurking above.

Murder, abduction, rape, orgies, Drawn with passion, or Painted in oils at the time with a palette knife, all seemed created to grab the attention, shock and horrify. His whole career can be seen as one long attack on the rules, tradition and the status quo in Art.

Still Life with Apples and a Pot of Primroses, ca. 1890, Oil on canvas, in The Met, and not included in Cèzanne Drawing. Met Photo.

Along with all of that, there is that eye, the way he sees things, and that unfailing sense for, and mastery of, color he had all along. Over time, his later Paintings achieve an almost surreal polish and finish, and achieve a complete solidity that is utterly convincing. Meanwhile, his Drawings often seem to delve into other dimensions. Objects are placed on seemingly impossible surfaces, or hang in space. The white of the paper becomes a star, an element the equal of any other in many works. These will seem a complete revelation to those who only know his Paintings, like me when I first walked in.

Rocks near the Chateau Noir, 1895-1900, Peincil and watercolor on paper. There is little in the world more solid than rock, but you’d never know it if you had only seen Cézanne’s series of Drawings of them near the Chateau Noir from 1895-1900. To me, they are a revolutionary marvel. Surface and forms dissolve right in front of our eyes.

As he put it all together, a MoMA wall card proved to be a revelation, particularly when thinking about his early training. In learning to draw the human body, one is taught to start by learning anatomy. Cézanne apparently applied this to his landscapes. “In order to paint a landscape well,” he is quoted on a wall card, “I first need to discover its geological structure.” It continues, “Cèzanne explored the relationship between rock and body throughout this series (of Drawings of rocks), in which the slabs take on the appearance of human bones and a cavern resembles the profile of a face.” And in this work, I see just that. The black lines form the “skeleton,” giving the piece a structure. Otherwise, the colors would be hanging in space.

Foliage, 1895, Watercolor and pencil on paper. At first glance it looks like an unfinished jumble of lines and colors with a lot of empty white space. Here, Cezanne is depicting leaves blowing in the wind. in so doing, he’s also blurring the line between representation and abstraction, which was a good decade off. Nearby, a full room of Still Lifes take things to the height of immateriality.

Still Life with Cut Watermelon, c.1900, Pencil and watercolor on paper. Of all the pieces on view, I’ve spent the most time studying this one. The table is “defined” with two brief lines, one a bit faint, on the right. The background is completely invisible and even the bottles in the back seem to be dissolving into space. Then, there’s the split open watermelon. At times it reminds me of an open heart.

His landscapes and his still lifes, with those famous arrangements of fruit on tables, have rightly garnered much of the attention and acclaim. They might originate from the gift of a basket of apple from his friend, Émile Zola in gratitude for Cèzanne’s rising to his defense against critics3, which would shed an entirely different light on them.

Wanna know why I still live in NYC? The chance to see incredible Art like this in shows like this. One of 4 walls in a large gallery of Cèzanne Still Lifes with fruit, including the one shown above, second from left here- some of the most innovative, visionary Drawings I’ve ever seen. (In some questionable frames.)

Seeing a large gallery full of them in 2021, they still seem completely fresh. As timeless as they are, Cézanne Drawing shows us there is much more to marvel at. Like his Portraits.

4 Portraits of the Gardener Vallier, 1904-6, Oil on canvas, 2nd from left, Pencil and watercolor on paper, the others. Endlessly fascinating, these 3 studies show remarkably similar poses to the Painting, yet with different backgrounds. They all share surprisingly undefined, nebulous, faces- unheard of in a traditional “Portrait.”

Though there are not many of them here, what is here makes a powerful impression, especially when seen along side, and in context with, his Drawings. Some years ago (in 2014), there was a show at The Met of Cézanne’s Portraits of his wife, Hortense Fiquet, aka Madame Cézanne, which captivated and mystified me at the same time.

On loan from The Met, Madame Cèzanne in the Conservatory, 1891-2, Oil on Canvas, right, with a Study of her, from 1885-6, on loan from The Guggenheim, NYC, left. Cèzanne was very uncomfortable around female models (especially undressed) and rarely used them. He was very comfortable, however, having his wife pose for him. She patiently sat for him often and he created a fascinating body of work depicting her, these two examples rarely seen together.

The woman we see in those works was inscrutable. Yet the technique and use of color also fascinate, particularly in relation to his other work. I came away finally feeling that his portraits deserve more attention, even though they are “different” from what many expect from a “Portrait,” and not necessarily as accessible as his ever-popular Still Lifes or Landscapes.

Unknown Photographer, Untitled (Portrait of the Model for The Bather), 1885, Albumen silver print.

Also, regarding Cèzanne’s Portraits, the show touches on the Artist’s use of Photographs, particularly as source material for MoMA’s famous Painting, The Bather.

The Bather, 1885, Oil on canvas.

He was far from alone in doing this at this time, yet he and the work he created using them have entirely escaped any sort of negative connotations for doing so that so many more recent Painters have suffered, including the recently passed Chuck Close. Which makes me wonder why it suddenly matters. It doesn’t! Photographs are, and have been for many Painters, something akin to a sketch. It’s plain to see Cèzanne didn’t slavishly copy the Photograph as much as it became a reference.

The Bridge of Trois-Sautets, 1906, Pencil and watercolor on paper. This late work is unlike anything in Art history to its time (even by Kandinsky or Munch), especially his own Oil Paintings. Compare it with Monet’s Footbridges around the same time. Its atmosphere stands diametrically opposed to those of the great Painters of atmospheric skies, Turner or Whistler, and different even from Van Gogh, and strikes me as a work that has much to offer Artists today4.

While his Paintings are seen as the precursors of Cubism, Abstraction and a number of other “isms” I don’t subscribe to, Cézanne’s remarkable Drawings are impossible to simply characterize. Why are they so different than his Oil Paintings? I wonder if it had something to do with his lifelong disappointments in having work accepted by the Salon, the yearly Paris Art show. One observer noted Cèzanne carrying his canvases on his back like Christ carrying the cross to be seen by the judges2. He was rejected by them early and often. So, how would work like these late Watercolors be received by them? Well over 100 years later, they still have yet to have their day, particularly as influences on other Artists. Perhaps, Cèzanne Drawing will turn out to be that day. However, one great Artist has not only already been influenced by these works, he’s put his money into them. No less than 12 of the pieces on view in Cézanne Drawing are somewhat surprisingly labelled “Collection Jasper Johns”! Extraordinarily astute acquisitions that add yet another dimension to our appreciation of this legendary Painter who will be receiving his (covid-delayed) 90th Birthday Retrospective at The Whitney Museum shortly.

Self-Portrait, No date, Pencil on laid paper, One work from the Collection Jasper Johns.

Now that they’ve seen the light of day, perhaps Cézanne Drawing will inspire some to build on the Drawing’s ahead-of-their-time innovations and help them achieve some of the wide-spread influence on Art his Paintings have had. Their time has come.

*-Soundtrack for this Post is “I Remember The Sun” by XTC from The Big Express, 1984.

“Squinting at the sun through eyes
Screwed up by a fireball
Tarmac on the road is soft
Chaff burns in a smoke wall
Yes, I’m weeping, a teardrop attack
I give emotion at the drop of a hat
When I remember days at school
I remember many things
But most of all, I remember the sun
Most of all, I remember the sun
Most of all, I remember the sun
Sun that worked on overtime
Fueled our bodies, kindled fire in our minds”*

NighthawkNYC.com has been entirely self-funded & ad-free for over 7 years, during which over 275 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! 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. Roger Fry, Cèzanne- A Study of His Development, P.3 ↩
  2. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/cezanne-107584544/ ↩
  3. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/cezanne-107584544/ ↩
  4. I must admit, having had glaucoma in both eyes, that in looking at later Cèzanne or Van Gogh I can’t help but wonder if either or both suffered from vision problems. Most likely it was just sheer genius at work. Given how much speculation surrounds Vincent, in particular still, I think we would have heard more about this by now. ↩
  5. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/cezanne-107584544/ ↩

The End Of The Art World…As We Know It

Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava
This is Part 3 of my series on the end of The Met Breuer also concludes my look at what I saw before the March 12th “temporary closing,” Part 1 looked at some of the history of the Breuer building, Part 2 looked at some of the most memorable moments and its legacy. Part 3 looks at where we are now, and wonders about the future…

Forlorn. The Met two months deep into its “temporary closing,” seen on May 21st.

When the clock struck 6pm on March 12th and I walked away from The Met Breuer on my last visit, much was unknown. I didn’t even know it would be the last time I would visit it. Five months later, a few questions have been answered, but the answer to most of them remain unknown. As I wrote in Part 1 and Part 2, March 12th turned out to be the very last day of The Met Breuer, which remained closed until The Met turned the Breuer building over to The Frick Collection in July, ending the Gerhard Richter: Painting After All show, which I saw on its last day, with it. Now, looking back on The Met Breuer (TMB), it’s becoming clearer that more than it has ended. In the ensuing five months, among Manhattan’s Big 5 museums, and the Brooklyn Museum, only The Met has announced plans to “hopefully” reopen on August 29th, (after being closed for five and a half months- unprecedented in my lifetime, and losing TMB along the way, as they “celebrate” their 150th Anniversary). As the fall season in the NYC Art world rapidly approaches, it looks right now to be a non-event.

A number of people I’ve spoken to in the Art business have lost their jobs or are scaling back their operations. I’m sure they are the tip of the iceberg among Art business professionals who have been laid off or furloughed. The rest gamely soldier on, hopefully safely. The Art Fair world (including The Photography Show, which I’ve extensively covered the past three years) ever-increasingly a staple of the Art business, has virtually disappeared overnight world-wide. While some events and shows have moved online, I think most people would agree, it’s not the same. Yes, Art & Photography can be sold online, and it is in large amounts, but it’s not the same as seeing it in person. I look at as much Art as anyone does online, and with rare exceptions, like Closer to Van Eyck, which I wrote about in January, wondering if it was the future of seeing Art, it’s just not the same experience. For me, looking at most Art online can only give one an idea of the piece. 

So, whither to the Art world, and Art in NYC?

The shuttered Matthew Marks Gallery on West 22nd Street, received a small business Paycheck Protection Program loan from the Small Business Administration of between $350,000 and $1,000,000. Note- All loans quoted in this piece are sourced from the Small Business Administration, here. Seen in June, 2020.

Nothing has been heard from any of NYC’s “big 5” museums or the Brooklyn Museum about their plans since March, beyond The Met’s reopening announcement, which is dependent on City and State approval. Some galleries are open. Some galleries are “open by appointment only.” Some galleries here are not open. Some are gone, as in out of business. Email from the Art world has provided little to no additional insight. I began to look elsewhere for answers to some of the countless questions.

The American Alliance of Museums conducted a survey of its member museums and its findings are dated June, 2020. I found the report chilling but not surprising. The result that has gotten the most publicity so far is the answer to-

“Do you believe there is a significant risk of your museum closing permanently in the next 16 months, absent additional financial relief?”

16% of 648 responders answered “YES.” With Art museums making up 20% of responders, doing some extrapolations, I calculate that as being “YES” from 24 out of 152 US Art museums. Since there’s no way of knowing how (or if) the NYC museums responded, we still have no way of knowing how they stand. I, for one, would be very surprised if any of Manhattan’s “big 5” museums or the Brooklyn Museum were to permanently close in the next 16 months, but who knows.

As concerning as the survival question, very surprising to me is the response to the question- “Months of Operating Reserves Remaining?” 56% of all US museums have 6 months OR LESS of operating reserves on hand. 67% of all museums responding have LESS than 1 year on hand (as of June, 2020, presumably). Again, I doubt the “big 5″+ Bklyn are among them. But, I am starting to wonder what their “staying power” is.

Each of them has been spending money like it’s going out of style this century- but not on Art, leaving each of their collections lagging those elsewhere in Modern & Contemporary Art! Consider-

The Brooklyn Museum seen on August 7, 2014, during its terrific Ai Weiwei: According to What? show, 10 years after its new entrance opened.

In 2004, The Brooklyn Museum remodeled at a reported cost of $63,000,000., which included adding this new entrance and outdoor plaza, a new lobby, a boardwalk, and “Vegas-style fountains with jets of water that dance1.”

In 2006, MoMA moved their exhibitions, including the historic Matisse-Picasso show, to their storage facility in Queens, dubbed MoMA Qns, while they undertook an $858,000,000. renovation.

In 2006 the Morgan Library and Museum opened their 90,000 square foot expansion of their 225 Madison Avenue campus designed by Renzo Piano. Cost= $75,000,000[1 Here.]. 

In 2007-8, the Guggenheim Museum spent $29,000,000. renovating their immortal Frank Lloyd Wright building that I tried to help save in 1984 from their dubious expansion2. (Though we’ve been living with it since, yes, I still consider it dubious.) 

The New Museum presents an attention grabbing silhouette that contrasts with the rough and tumble history of the Bowery at the expense of the gallery spaces inside. There are too many odd, small and strangely placed galleries that are easy to miss and must be very problematic for their excellent curators. Seen here in April, 2017.

December 1, 2007, the New Museum opened its new 50,000 square foot building on the Bowery. Cost= $50,000,000.3

The Whitney, seen shuttered on May 27th. What is it with NYC museums and Renzo Piano? And WHY? Five years after this building opened, it still says absolutely nothing to me. Inside, the lobby is useless and the galleries just “Ok” in my opinion. My bet is that over time, the 13,000 square feet of outdoor space will come to be seen as a mistake. The big question so far, beyond the Whitney’s board, is why have so many of its major shows felt truncated or petered out? Vida Americana is the first one that doesn’t

October, 2014, The Whitney Museum’s final show closed at the building Marcel Breuer designed for it at 945 Madison Avenue and that they occupied since September, 1966, almost 50 years. In 2015, they reopened on Gansevoort Street in a building also designed by Renzo Piano. Cost= $442,000,0004.

MoMA’s famous main entrance shuttered during the protests, seen on June 27th.

The second “new” MoMA of this century was open, officially, from October 21, 2019 through March 12th, 2020, at a cost this time of $450,000,000. (400 million for new construction, 50 for renovation of the last “new” MoMA)5. Total cost of 21st century MoMA renovations and expansion= $1.3 BILLION. Though I referred to “the gorillas in the room” in my look at the “newest” MoMA, beyond spending that $1.3B on Art, there is another gorilla they could have spend it on.

The sun is setting on the New Museum building, seen here in April, 2019, in more ways than one. Plans have been announced to expand into the building to its right, once that building is torn down, with a design that has nothing to do with its existing design, and once again, leaves me scratching my head. As we just saw with MoMA- getting it right the first time would have been much smarter. Ever notice how this never happens to The Met, the kings of museum renovations? Nonetheless, the New Museum have had a run of excellent shows, including unforgettable retrospectives of Raymond Pettibon and Nari Ward. For those of you keeping score at home, Renzo Piano has nothing to do with this expansion- as far as I know.

In June, 2019, the New Museum announced plans to expand the building they only opened in 2007. Cost- $63,000,000.6 Their total 21st century building & renovation costs= $113,000,000. Note- The New Museum has no permanent collection. Under the Paycheck Protection Program, The New Museum received $1,000,000. to $2,000,000. in loans.

Fotografiska – New York across Park Avenue, seen on August 15th.

December 14, 2019, the Fotografiska- New York, a new Photography museum opened on Park Avenue South. Cost not known to me. They renovated an entire landmarked six story building, so it wasn’t cheap. They were open for 3 months before the shutdown.

The Met. Not exactly how they drew up celebrating the 150th Anniversary of their founding. They’re probably hoping to get another chance on the 150th Anniversary of the 1000 Fifth Avenue building in another couple of years. Hopefully, they’ll have a better logo then, too. From a distance, this looks like “15C,” no? Seen May 21, 2020.

And, all this while The Met has done countless renovations including the entire Greek & Roman Wing and the entire American Wing. When the closure hit, they were also knee deep in their European Paintings Skylight renovations. In 2011, Thomas Campbell, then Director, announced a renovation to their Modern & Contemporary Wing using TMB as a satellite for shows in the 8 year interim, at a cost of $800,000,000, plus renovations and rent of the Breuer, only to see The Museum fall on financially hard times, in spite of record attendance due to a legal loophole changing the admissions policy. Mr. Campbell resigned, and the plan was scrapped. On September 22, 2018, The Met announced it had made a deal to ‘sublease” the Breuer building to The Frick Collection in July, 2020, so The Frick could renovate their own building. Daniel Weiss, President/CEO. said The Met would save $45 million under the deal7. Cost of renovations to The Frick Collection is reported to be $160 million. It’s unknown if that includes whatever they’re paying to The Met for their “sublease” on the Breuer building8. I don’t think it does since this figure was published before The Met and Frick agreement was made public. 

The Met’s plaza under reconstruction to install fountains seen in May, 2014. Their $65,000,000 cost was paid for by David H. Koch, who’s name was controversially installed in gold letters on both fountains when they opened in September, 2014, to protests.

In November, 2018, Daniel Weiss and new Director Max Hollein announced a $70,000,000. plan to renovate the Africa, Oceania and the Americas Wing and a $600,000,000 dollar plan to renovate their Modern & Contemporary galleries (down from the $800,000,000 original plan,) “now that the museum is on track to balance it’s $320,000,000. annual budget by 2020,” according to the NY Times, November 18, 20189. There has been no word yet on whether their budget will still be in balance this year, or on the status of announced renovation plans. 

Why all of this building, renovating and huge outlays of capital?

2019 Visitors per the Art Newpaper
Metropolitan Museum- 6,479,548
Museum of Modern Art- 1 ,922,121 (MoMA was closed for renovation for 4 months)
Guggenheim Museum- 1,283,209
Whitney Museum- 1.030,945
Other NYC Art museums- less than 1,000,000 each.

The museums were in a race to compete with each other for visitors. It seemed like each and every year new attendance records were set in NYC. The museums felt the need to go bigger and better to keep up and keep drawing record numbers (and to lure donations of money, naming rights, and Art- particularly since they have now been priced out of buying many of the masterpieces of Modern & Contemporary Art they missed when they were new). These seemed to feed on each other in an unprecedented cycle of museum building and renovations this century.

Then, on March 13, 2020, the music suddenly stopped. Only Daniel Weiss, it seems to me, was left with a chair. In September, 2018, a year and a half before the pandemic, he saved The Met $45,000,000. by getting The Frick to sublease the Breuer building. Wait. What? An NYC museum getting OUT of an expensive expansion project? We didn’t know it then, but that may have marked the beginning of the end of these projects. Between that and how deftly he has handled The Met’s precarious finances to this point, he has earned a job for life, in my opinion. Still, looking back on March 13th from the vantage of five months it seems obvious to me that that was the day the Art world, as we knew it10, ended.

The closed front doors of the Whitney Museum, May 27th. It looks like when these doors do reopen, the blockbuster Vida Americana will as well. The Whitney & The Guggenheim each received between $5,000,000 and $10,000,000. in small business loans under the Paycheck Protection Program. The Met and MoMA received nothing under this program.

Five months later, the best that can be hoped for in 2020 is these museums were open for a total of 6 1/2 months- from January 1st through March 12th and September 1st through December 31st (the best case scenario at the moment). If so, they will be EXTRAORDINARILY lucky to reach half of 2019’s numbers. Given a new reality of fewer open days, shorter hours and admissions limits, that would appear to be extremely unlikely. The bigger question is WHEN will the big numbers return to the museums? The biggest question is- What happens if they don’t soon? Or ever?

It’s possible we are heading into dark times. Given scarce public funding, philanthropy fills in the gaps for  the museums. Despite the fact that sources of museum funding has come under closer scrutiny, in the near future there may be too many places in need of funding for those willing to fund. That closer scrutiny may give way to necessity. That before most of them reopen 16% of museums (of all kinds- not only Art museums) say there is a “significant risk” of permanent closure is a number that may or may not rise as things develop. NYC’s Art museums may be a bit more insulated than most, but they have made some huge decisions that may prove to be very shortsighted. 

One building that won’t be open soon is the new Hauser & Wirth behemoth on West 22nd Street towering over and horribly out of place among its residential neighbors. Frankly, it’s already an eyesore. As numerous small galleries go out of business around it, Hauser received $1,000,000.-$2,000,000. in Paycheck Protection Program loans in July. Yet, they have the money to build this?

Of course, ALL of this leaves out one very important group- living Artists. Most Artists (not named Jeff Koons, who received a PPP loan of $1,000,000. to $2,000,000.) are largely left on their own, and, whether they have gallery representation or not, are relying on the internet to sell their work. When you consider the workforce as a whole, they are a bit “lucky” to even have that outlet. Many others have no ability to work or earn without physically going to a  workplace.

Still, I’m sure there are many Artists around the world who are beginning to wonder “If this gallery isn’t showing my work to people in person, what am I paying them for?,” adding even more fuel to the “We NEED a new model!” movement I’ve heard from countless Artists & Photographers these past five years, from which there is no going back. The vast majority of Artists in the world don’t have gallery representation and have been making their own way in the Art world for their entire careers. In my opinion, and in my experience, this movement is only going to continue and grow.

Since no one yet knows how long this is likely to last, it’s also unknown if those loans are sufficient to tie over those who received them. (Full disclosure- Amount given/loaned/granted or donated to NighthawkNYC= $0.) For the rest of the Art world, as it is for the rest of us, it’s “God Bless the child who’s got his own,” as Billie Holiday sang in 1941. Right now, I can’t help but wonder- Will the day come when any or all of the museums who’ve spent tens, hundreds of millions, or billions of dollars on renovations or new buildings come to rue the day they did? As they presumably prepare to enter the “brave new world” we all face, wherever we are, IF  they are among the 34% of museums who told the AAM they have 4 months of Operating Revenue Remaining as of June? They will.

It seems to me in their race to outdo each other, they may be in danger of shortsightedly overlooking the REAL race. The most important race. The race to survive. 

*-Soundtrack for this Post is “It’s the End of the World as We Know It” by R.E.M. from Document, 1987 seen here in their official video, brilliantly Directed by James Herbert-

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NYC’s Museums Are “Temporarily Closed”- UPDATED

Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava

Tonite, as I write, all of Manhattan’s “Big Five” Art Museums and the Brooklyn Museum are “temporarily closed” due to concerns over the coronavirus, marking the first time this has happened since 9/11.

Gerhard Richter, September, 2005, Oil on canvas. The Artist created this four years after 9/11. Seen at Gerhard Richter: Painting After All on March 12, 2020, the final day The Met Breuer was open before its “temporary closing.”

Extraordinary measures for extraordinary times. 

Unfortunately, this comes at a moment when there are a number of important shows going on including-

Vida Americana: Mexican Muralists Remake American Art, 1925-1945 at the Whitney Museum

Dorothea Lange and Donald Judd at MoMA

Jordan Casteel and Peter Saul at the New Museum

Gerhard Richter: Painting After All at The Met Breuer

each of which only recently opened. 

I was able to see both Vida Americana and the Gerhard Richter this week before their sudden closings, which came without notice, and while I mull them over, I will say it would be a real shame if the closures turn out to be extended and prevent more people from seeing both of these shows, though of course, the health and wellbeing of visitors and staff must come first. In particular, Vida Americana is, perhaps, the most important Painting show I’ve seen in an NYC museum since Kerry James Marshall: Mastry graced The Met Breuer in late 2016 to 2017. 

The Gerhard Richter show, while a terrific feat of curating by Sheena Wagstaff and her team in bringing in major works from all over which are very handsomely hung, offers an opportunity to see his work through the eyes of our time and in light of both what has come since, as well as what has been discovered about what was done before and during his time by Artists who were in eclipse for too long. In my opinion, Mr. Richter, perhaps a bit like Andy Warhol, winds up with quite a few works that don’t seem to have aged all that well and it will be interesting to see if the future finds these works speak to them. There are other works who’s gravitas is plain- like the exceptional Birkenau series, (unforgettably installed adjacent to 4 incredibly rare surviving Photos taking inside Auschwitz II Birkenau by a member of the Sonderkommandos), the beautiful Forest series, and a number of fine works that seem to have been overlooked thus far. This show is a great opportunity for each viewer to assess, or reassess, for themself.

5pm, March 12, 2020. Minutes before closing at The Met Breuer, a staff member is still busy cleaning the doors. When they’ll get opened again to the public is anyone’s guess. I heard one guard say to another, “See you May 1st.” Was that his guess? The Gerhard Richter show is scheduled to open at MOCA, L.A. on August 15th, making it unlikely to be extended in NYC.

Here’s hoping the closings will be brief. But, if they are not, and, with the postponing of a number of Art & Photography shows this past week around the country, how long will it be before the galleries follow suit? In addition to any and all of the other effects it may have, all of this makes me wonder what the effect of the coronavirus may wind up being on the Art world, and the Art market, which has seen an unabated, meteoric, rise over the past three decades. 

In the meantime, stay healthy out there.

Mid Tuesday afternoon, March 17, 2020. Normally, West 24th Street in the gallery district of Chelsea would see a steady stream of foot and vehicular traffic going to the galleries lining both sides of the street from end to end. Today? I could have safely laid down to take this shot.

UPDATE- March 13th, one day later. Many, even most, of the NYC galleries have announced either closures or “open by appointment only.”

Gagosian on West 24th Street, scene of Jonas Wood’s latest NYC show, would normally be open.

While I expect many other non-Art businesses to close temporarily in the near future, a good many, especially smaller, businesses would be in extreme financial peril if they were to close for an extended time, particularly in the never more expensive NYC business environment.

The scene over on West 21st Street. The terrific Sarah Sze show was here late last year. Today, that jogger doesn’t have to worry about running into anyone, and the street looks like it did before the galleries came here.

It’s hard not to think about how that reflects on the “Art business.” It also makes me wonder how these “appointment only” galleries know the health status of whoever they are choosing to let in, among other things.

NighthawkNYC.com has been entirely self-funded and ad-free for over 6 years, during which over 250 full length pieces have been published. If you’ve found it worthwhile, you can donate to keep it going & ad-free below. Thank you!

Written & photographed by Kenn Sava for nighthawknyc.com unless otherwise credited.
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Sarah Sze: Creativity, Unbounded

Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava

“I bring together the materials I find around me. I gather them to try and create immersive experiences that occupy rooms, that occupy walls, landscapes, buildings, but ultimately I want them to occupy memory.” Sarah Sze, TED Talk.

Crescent (Timekeeper), 2019, Mixed media

In the 4 1/2 years of NHNYC I’ve never yet called a Contemporary Artist a genius. Until now. [Drum roll]

Sarah Sze is a genius in my opinion.

As I take stock of the Art I saw in 2019, along with Jean-Michel Basquiat at The Brant Foundation (which I looked at here), the most unforgettable show I saw this past year was Sarah Sze at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery. As I write this three months after it closed, it’s at the front of my memory of everything I saw last year.

Overflowing. Sarah Sze began on the outside(!) of the gallery’s doors and windows.

Detail of part of Images in Refraction (West) on the western part of the facade of Tanya Bonakdar Gallery (to the left in the previous picture) reveals the multimedia nature of what’s on view inside, and the multi-dimensional talent of the Artist. Painting, Sculpture, Collage, Engineering & Architecture, Photography, Film, Installation- you name it. You get it. And then some.

I’ve seen her gallery shows over the past decade, and each time, I left shaking my head. Part sculpture, part installation, part construction project, part hardware store free-for-all, they were always impossible to fully take in at one look. You saw their shape from a distance and admired the overall composition, and then learned the devil was in the detail, and the detail, and the seemingly endless detail. Still, I wasn’t prepared for her expansion into multi-media, including the debut of her Paintings, she presented on West 21st Street this fall where not even two floors, the reception area, the ancillary walls, both sides of the galleries windows, doors, or the space under the stairs were enough to contain her seemingly boundless creativity.

 

Looking out at the view seen previously of Images in Refraction (West), with installation on the wall, right, leading to the first gallery.

Not to mention 4 galleries filled with her trademark seemingly infinite detail.

Detail of the ever-changing projection that filled the walls surrounding Crescent/Timekeeper.

After the lead-in provided by entering the gallery and passing through the prelude in the reception area, Crescent (Timekeeper), 2019, turned the large gallery into a fully immersive experience from the moment you entered the space and tried to take it all in from about 25 feet away, as may be seen in the very first image above, like some alien craft in a pre-2001:A Space Odyssey 1960s sci-fi movie. “Yes. Something landed…and…it’s glowing! Moving in for a closer look. Tell Lana I love her…” Situated near one far corner allowed embedded rotating projectors to have much of the surrounding walls to themselves engulfing you as you enter the space.

Close up/Details of the center section of Crescent (Timekeeper). Stepladders are a recurring motif in Sarah Sze’s work. As she’s said, “Everything you need to make the piece is in the piece.”

As you approach between two “arms” extending out on the floor, you realize that the center section contains about 50 screens of varying size. Standing there for a few moments reveals each one of those screens contains projected images moving independently of each other. Yet, tracing them back, you find only a few overhead projectors. ? On one visit the work struck me as an almost nostalgic look at life on earth. Suffice it to say, you need to experience it for yourself.

To the stars…Gazing at the top of the “superstructure” of Crescent (Timekeeper), 2019, Mixed media.

With so much to see in just this work, I was somewhat shocked when I realized Crescent (Timekeeper) wasn’t the only “monumental” work on view!

Detail, part of one of 4 walls that makes up After Studio, 2019, with the work Surround Sound (After Studio), 2019, Oil paint, acrylic paint, acrylic polymers, ink, aluminum, archival paper, disband and wood, 103 1/4 x 130 inches, center. No Photo can begin to covey what it was like to be in this work, which is what visitors to this space were, but looking at the piece on the wall, center, the first “Painting” by Sarah Sze I’ve seen, might begin to.

In a smaller, rear, gallery on the first floor, I encountered one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen in an Art show- what looked to be a complete (re)construction of one of her studios down to the last detail. A work titled After Studio, 2019. It appeared to me to center around a series of Paintings by Sarah Sze, the first I’ve ever seen, though they are as much Collage as Painting. ”In the age of the image, a painting is a sculpture,” Sarah Sze said in 2019.

Details of details from the right of center section of Surround Sound (After Studio) seen above.

That sentiment puts her in the direct line of Picasso & Braque’s Cubism, Marcel Duchamp, Joseph Cornell, Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, Jack Whitten, Frank Stella and, more recently, Mark Bradford and Julie Mehertu. With everything Sarah Sze includes in her Paintings, two things struck me as particularly interesting- her use of Photography (apparently her own), and her “use” of words. They’re there, if you look closely, but they almost exclusively appear to be “notes to self” rather than to others on “post-it” like notes. I was told that the Artist went back and replaced each one with archival equivalents as she completed the work. Yes Surround Sound (After Studio) is complete, and some very astute museum bought it.

The corner of the opposite and adjacent walls. Remind yourself- You’re in a gallery.

I returned to experience After Studio again and again and it felt to me like I was walking around in the Artist’s mind. Often when I see Art, especially landscapes, I close my eyes to feel the presence of place in the piece in my mind’s eye. Here was one “landscape,” I couldn’t keep my eyes open long enough to drink in. Nary a foot of After Studio, save for the center space to move around it, lacked vision or wonder. When I left if for the last time on October 17th, I was fully in awe1.

Another detail, this one interesting for showing some of the Photographs the Artist may, or may not, use, along with what may happen to them on the way.

On the 2nd floor, the large back gallery contained more Paintings, and a Painted floor. All told, nine Paintings were in the show. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised by the appearance of her Paintings, after all Sarah Sze studied to be a Painter for a decade before turning her attention to “make meaning of the things around us through materials2.” For me, as amazing as the installations are, the Paintings linger with me every bit as much. No small feat.

I am thrilled to see her interest in Painting return in stunning works like this. 12 Landscapes (After Object), 2019, Oil paint, acrylic paint, acrylic polymers, ink, aluminum, archival paper, disband and wood (triptych), 73 1/2 x 110 1/4 inches.

Detail of 12 Landscapes (After Object).

I was told the show took 2 1/2 weeks to install- for a show that only ran for 6 weeks!

Images in Translation, 2019, Mixed media.

Finally, upstairs in the Project Room, Images in Translation, 2019, was installed in the dark, making it very hard to get a shot of that comes close to doing it justice.

Detail.

Time to head downstairs and back outside.

Looking down from 2 flights above at Images in Refraction(East) under the stairs.

I then immediately started scrambling down West 21st Street to find the pieces of my exploded mind that had wound up on the ground. On September 21st, the opening day of the “New” MoMA, two days after Sarah Sze ended, I discovered this installed on the 6th floor-

Sarah Size, Triple Point (Pendulum), 2013, seen at MoMA, Opening day, September 21, 2019

Sarah Sze’s Triple Point (Pendulum), a work that was originally shown at the 2013 Venice Biennale when the Artist represented the USA, was on display, front and center, in the exhibition Surrounds: 11 Installations.

The immersive experience Sarah Sze gives us in Blueprint for a Landscape in the 96th Street 2nd Avenue Station is based on a fantasy of the construction of Hudson Yards, which is no where near it.

Though that show, too, has now ended, New Yorkers are able to see Sarah Sze’s work anytime- 24/7/365. Ms. Sze created the Art in the 96th Street Subway Station on the new 2nd Avenue line, which opened in 2017, making her one of a handful of Artists who’s work was installed during the creation of the brand new Subway Station it will be seen in permanently. I’ve lauded before the taste of those charged with selecting Art for the Subway, and here’s yet another instance of brilliant vision, in my opinion. Here’s a look for readers without a MetroCard. I can’t help thinking that in 100 years, people will treasure this remarkable video of both the construction of the Station and the Artist actually there, giving a walkthrough-

Sarah Sze is moving between Sculpture, Painting, Photography, Film, Installation and collage in new ways, creating results that have never been seen before. Her work is like the city, like the forest, like a home, and filled with elements, reminders, and the detritus of each. And, in a work like Crescent (Timekeeper), it’s full of what will be memories and associations in the form of images. To what end? As in all great Art, that’s left to each viewer to decide.

More details of After Studio

In my view, though the show marks something of a new “period” in her work, it’s seamless with what’s come before. Already a world famous Artist, could it be that she’s only scratched the surface of her talent? A year ago I’d be shocked to have said that about her work. Now? I’m ready to bet on it.

I have no idea how she conceives her pieces, but in each one of Sarah‘s shows- literally, never more than in her most recent show, I felt like I was walking around inside of her brain.

Ah…so this is what it’s like to be a genius…

*Soundtrack for this Post is “Aurora” by Bjork from Vespertine.

NighthawkNYC.com has been entirely self-funded and ad-free for over 6 years, during which over 250 full length pieces have been published. If you’ve found it worthwhile, you can donate to keep it going & ad-free below. Thank you!

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.
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  1. I returned on October 19th, the show’s closing day, but there was a line to get into After Studio. I passed and left feeling fortunate to have spent a few hours in it by myself over the run of the show. ↩
  2. Ted Talk ↩

The “New” MoMA, And The Gorillas In The Room

Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava (except *)

MoMA, 1st floor lobby sign, October 19, 2019. I’ve been through this before. The last time, it was a nightmare. How would this “new” MoMA be?

MoMA and I go a long way back. It’ll be 40 years next year. 

I can remember this like it was yesterday…The entrance to Pablo Picasso: A Retrospective at MoMA, 1980. My Art show attending career began when I walked through that entrance. *MoMA Photo.

I first went to The Museum of Modern Art in 1980 for their incomparable Pablo Picasso: A Retrospective that took over the whole museum. I was on the road with a band at the time and I flew back to NYC twice to see it. Though it was not my first trip to a museum to see Art, it began my career of seeing Art shows and is burned indelibly in my mind since. While I came away feeling the late works were underappreciated, the earliest works which were new to me, like Science and Charity, 1897, Painted at age 15, seen through the entrance, above, particularly astounded me, and it never let up from there. An almost impossibly high bar had been set. I wasn’t able to attend MoMA regularly until after the 1984 renovation, which I call MoMA, 1984. Looking back on that MoMA now, I have quite fond memories of the building. I’ll never forget being in the gallery the museum dedicated to Claude Monet’s Water Lilies, 1914-26, long a very important bridge between representational Art and abstraction for me. As I recall, it was a small room, with a bench along the window overlooking West 53rd Street. You entered the room where panel 1 met panel 2, at about 10 o’clock as you faced it. You sat there and the three huge panels surrounded  you, making you feel like you were inside it. It was one of the greatest feelings I’ve ever had looking at Art. I didn’t think MoMA, 1984 was anything special at the time, but given how lacking MoMA, 2006, the most recent MoMA was, which of course, is still with us in the partially new MoMA, 2019, I now feel quite nostalgic for a building that was “adequate” at best, overall.

The heart of Art darkness. Construction for MoMA, 2019 in progress at the famous main entrance, behind the arrows pointing visitors to the temporary entrance, December 20, 2018.

I saw Matisse-Picasso at MoMA Qns in 2003, where MoMA was temporarily as MoMA, 1984 became MoMA, 2006, which I went to innumerable times (and have written about a number of its shows here on NYNYC), from it’s earliest days. MoMA, 2006, which opened that November, was terrible, in my opinion (I replaced a stronger negative). I remember standing in utter shock looking at Monet’s Water Lilies installed around the base of the huge, open space, they called the “atrium,” where they had no sense of their compositional continuity or unity. Barnett Newman’s Broken Obelisk, 1963-9, installed in the center of the space looked better there than anything I’ve seen there that came after it, which is not really saying anything all that positive.

The newly renovated main entrance. Opening day, October 21, 2019.

“The Shopping Mall of Modern Art,” I took to calling MoMA, 2006, the one we’ve been living with these past 13 years. I don’t live in the suburbs partially because I hate malls, yet, here we were given one. The Architect, Yoshio Taniguchi, said1 “The model for MoMA is Manhattan itself.“ He spoke about how Central Park is like MoMA’s Sculpture Garden in his concept. Apparently he felt the rest of Manhattan is one giant shopping mall, cause that’s the design we got- a department store, nothing more, nothing less, who’s floors/departments are connected by an escalator, as they always are. If MoMA had decided to move to an entirely new location instead of turning MoMA, 2006 into MoMA, 2019, whoever would have come into the building would have a virtual turnkey Macy’s II ready to go. “Contemporary on 2,” “This way to the Permanent Collection, and home fixtures…I mean Design”…

That brings me to the Gorillas in the room…Both of them.

“There’s a hole
In my life
There’s a hole
In my life”*

The “atrium,” Member’s Preview” for the “new” MoMA, October 19, 2019.

The first is that 110 foot tall gorilla in the building officially or unofficially called the “atrium.“ For some reason that I have not for the life of me been able to figure out over a few hundred visits these past 13 years, the Architect decided to drop a 110 foot tall atrium, (the “hole” I call it), smack dab in the middle of the building that, apparently, even some of the world’s great curators haven’t found a defining use for in almost one and a half decades2. I don’t blame them. I blame the Architect and whoever else thought this space was a good idea. I’ve never seen them use any more than the first 20 feet or so of its 110 until they mounted a decal-like iridescent work, seen above, on one of its walls for the opening of MoMA, 2019. And, I blame those who decided not to remove it in MoMA, 2019.  MoMA created MoMA, 2019, partially, because they “needed more space.” Well, guess what? You’ve got 7,700 square feet, or so, of completely useless space right smack dab in the middle of the building3, right in the middle of some of the most expensive real estate on earth. Instead of extending each of the floors as they should have been originally and filling that hole, they tore down an existing, good, museum, The American Folk Art Museum, formerly at 45 West 53rd Street next door!

Construction of the new building for MoMA, 2019, where the American Folk Art Museum stood, seen on December 20, 2018.

“Shadow in my heart
Is tearing me apart
Or maybe it’s just something
In my stars”*

Frankly, all of this galls me.

“Soaring…””Majestic…””One of NYC’s great interior spaces…” Oh, sorry. I was reading about the Guggenheim. I can’t find anyone saying that about this.

Because of the atrium, the flow of every floor in MoMA, 2006 is broken up, causing headaches for visitors and curators. This goes right to the heart of the museum’s purpose- showing Art. A good number of the galleries in MoMA, 2006 felt strangely shaped, small, or lost. In this case, small doesn’t add “intimacy.” Instead, it serves to actually minimize the effect of the Art being shown in them, in my experience. The Brancusi show mounted before the summer, 2019 closure, and the new Betye Saar show both suffer from this, in my opinion, both being mounted in the same 2nd floor gallery, tucked off to the south side of the hole, behind sliding glass doors (which I also think are an annoying idea and an energy drain), unchanged between Moma, 20o6 and MoMA, 2019.

Apparently, given it’s still here in MoMA, 2019, MoMA is in denial that the atrium is a problem. For me, visiting MoMA, 2006 gives me the unmistakable feeling that I’m continually walking around, and working my way around, the hole, instead of the whole experience just flowing.

MoMA’s floor plan for part of the “new” 2nd floor. I’ve added notations in dark blue- a label for the atrium to point out where it is and how it needs to be navigated around. I’ve also labelled where MoMA, 2006 was (below the added blue line) and labelled where MoMA, 2019 is now (above the blue line) in the margin. Not shown- the other galleries on this floor, located in what MoMA now calls the “South” section (to the left and lower left.). All are effected by the “atrium.” Bear in mind- this is only ONE floor!

In fact, in MoMA, 2019, they’ve decided to double down. Keeping the hole, they’ve opted to extend the existing 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th floors the other way- to the west. I take this as an admission that the floors needed to be extended. We differ on how. You can see this in the 2nd floor floor plan, above. I’ve drawn a blue line to the left from gallery 205 and everything above that is the new building, what I call MoMA, 2019, below is what I call MoMA, 2006. It almost works. It does serve to minimize the “interference”/inconvenience of the hole, unless you’re in a section where you have to navigate around it. Alas, as soon as you are back in the “old” building, the MoMA, 2006 part, there it is, rearing its ugly head again, sending you to a floor plan trying to find your way. But, it also dramatically effects MoMA’s curators, and no doubt, every single show they mount in these spaces. WHY they just didn’t remove the atrium and extend the floors and make the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th floors full floors? (The 6th floor is a different matter, I believe due to the heights of the buildings. It already is a full, raw, space in the MoMA, 2006 building and a cafe has been installed on 6 on the MoMA, 2019 side (which I have not seen as yet. You can walk through from MoMA 2006 to MoMA 2019 on 2, 3, 4 and the 5th floor, but you can’t on 6. If you’re on 6 in MoMA 2006, you have to go down to 5, walk over to MoMA, 2019, and then go up to 6 on that side, or vice versa). That they didn’t remove the atrium is another, huge, mistake in my view. Alas, it’s too late for tears. And having been sad about MoMA’s building since MoMA, 2006 opened, I’m about cried out. Yes, MoMA, 2006 was so bad it actually kept me from going at times.

Where the heck am I going? Before going anywhere, it’s a good idea to check the “central scoreboard,” as I call it. West? North? South? What? Look quick! Those listings next to each floor change to show other things going on on that floor. Seen on the official opening day, October 21, 2019.

Another question for me is HOW do you redesign the building into MoMA, 2006, spending over 850 million dollars doing so, and not early on in the game ask, “WHERE are we going to put our most popular works?” Apparently, no one asked. Over the subsequent 13 years of the building, Monet’s Water Lilies and Van Gogh’s Starry Night, to name two, were continually moved, and never once looked to have found THE place for them. I lost count of how many places I saw the Water Lilies in MoMA, 2006, all the while with that indelible memory I recalled earlier in my mind.

The brand new elevator doors open on my first visit to MoMA, 2019’s 2nd floor, October 19, 2019.

SURELY someone would ask that question when it came to designing MoMA, 2019! Two visits in? The answer is a decided…I’m not sure.

Home? At last? Monet’s Water Lilies, 1914-26, in a gallery devoted to his Water Lily Paintings (yes, they have others). We’ll see how long these stay here.

The Water Lilies seem to have been given some thought. They are decently situated in a gallery that contains only Monet Water Liliy works on an angled wall, similar to one of the installations they had in MoMA, 2006. You can scan the whole work continuously but it doesn’t give you a “wrap around” feeling. Starry Night fares far less well. It’s stuck in a corner(!?) at the end of a long gallery. I was shocked when I walked in and saw this. It’s just terrible.

Cornered! Vincent van Gogh’s beloved Starry Night, 1889 can be barely seen (as usual), though it’s now stuck in a corner. Seen on the official opening day, October 21, 2019

In this large gallery one other Van Gogh is installed half way down the wall to the left. I didn’t get the feeling of connection with the other works shown near Starry Night. Munch, who I greatly admire, is seen on the left hand wall, and while many pair him with Vincent, he gives me a completely different feeling, though l’ve wondered if Vincent may have been an influence on the Artist who was a decade younger. MoMA may have felt that putting other Van Goghs next to Starry Night might have created too big a crowd. I can live with seeing Munch next to Van Gogh’s. As seen in this gallery, due to the new arrangement of the galleries, multiple works by the same Artist are spread out, often across galleries.

Picasso, Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, 1907.

That means that if you want to see, say, the Picassos, you have to plot a path to a number of rooms, where you might see one, or you might see 3 or 4. If you have multiple Artists on your hit list of pieces to see? You’re going to need a good chunk of time- just to plan your routes. Especially if they’re installed over multiple floors. I have mixed feelings so far about this arrangement, but I’ve been living with this collection for decades, and while I prefer seeing it chronologically so you can see how Art has evolved over time, mixing it up can be a nice change of pace and reveal new synergies. This “theme” strategy, which is more like that of a special exhibition, feels geared to people like me who have lived with the collection for a while and might welcome being surprised (if that’s what they feel). First time visitors, or those here with limited time, may feel differently.

Picasso, The Charnel House, 1944-5. The iconic Guernica is a work Picasso Painted in 1937, in the early days of World War II. The Charnel House was Painted at the end of the War, bookending Guernica, though far less well-known. Guernica was part of MoMA’s collection until Picasso died. He stipulated in his will it be returned to Spain. So, including it in the 1980 Picasso Retrospective, where I was able to see both of them, was something of a farewell before Guernica went to Spain.

Picasso seems to fare better than Starry Night. At least three of his major works (Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, 1907, Three Musicians, 1921, and The Charnel House, 1944-5) get walls all to themselves- in different galleries.

The upper left corner of Dali’s, The Persistence of Memory, 1931 (aka the “Soft Watches”). Picasso watch- Girl before a Mirror, 1932, is partially seen in the rear to the right.

As for other works on the most popular list, one was easier to find. Dali’s The Persistence of Memory, 1931 (aka the “Soft Watches”) gets a pillar to itself front and center in gallery 517. And on the opposite side of the same wall is Frida Kahlo’s Self-Portrait with Cropped Hair, 1940. That was easy. I only had to ask once to find it. (The Water Lilies? I asked 3 times. I saw another visitor seeking them ask twice.)

I found the galleries to be well lit, as readers well know, lighting is one of my long standing peeves in most spaces I see Art. One gallery of 2 Hopper Paintings accompanied by a good many Photographs was a bit dark, I presume this was intentional for conservation purposes. The consistency of the lighting across the museum that I’ve seen thus far is to be commended.

Lower level gift & book shop. One of at least 2 in the museum.

The first floor lobby felt like being in any of the faceless, large Times Square hotels nearby. It felt that a lot of money was spent here. Yet, I can never recall asking someone “How was your visit to such and such museum?” and getting the response, “Oh, the lobby was amazing!” I believe “sinking” the gift shop/book store is a mistake. Getting anywhere in MoMA, 2019 requires taking stairs and elevators. The last thing people may feel like doing is taking MORE stairs just to visit a shop. We shall see.

Not listed on the floor plan, the previous cafe has been replaced by a Brancusi gallery on 5 (gallery #500). Behind it, we now get free access to the outside patio overlooking the Sculpture Garden.

“There’s something missing from my life
Cuts me open like a knife
It leaves me vulnerable
I have this disease
I shake like an incurable
God help me please”*

Jean-Michel Basquiat, Glenn, 1985, left, Keith Haring, Untitled, 1982, right.

Then there’s the other gorilla in the room at the “new” MoMA, 2019. My feeling is that MoMA, The Museum of Modern Art, is dangerously close (if it hasn’t happened already) to remaining just that, indefinitely. It’s not THE Museum of Modern & Contemporary Art many think it is. Their collection of the most important Contemporary Art is nowhere to the level of it’s preeminent collection of Modern Art (the period I consider to be approximately from Edouard Manet’s Le Dejeuner sur l’herbe, 1862, through 1979), or the collections of important Contemporary Art in LA, SF or Chicago, in the US. MoMA (and all the NYC museums) have fallen hopelessly behind in collecting important Contemporary Art. Jean-Michel Basquiat (J-MB) is a classic case, but he’s not alone. As they admitted, they didn’t collect his work early on and now it’s too late. I recently recounted MoMA’s history (or lack thereof) with J-MB in my series on the J-MB shows going on in NYC this year. Revealingly, only one of the 5 shows in NYC was mounted in a museum- The Guggenheim. Then, when I walked into the member’s preview for MoMA, 2019 on October 19th, low and behold there was a Basquiat front and center in the second gallery, above. It turns out they borrowed it from a private collection. This seemed to me to be a classic case of “smoke and mirrors,” of trying to hide this large hole in their Contemporary Art collection- and, after all these years (40 next year), possibly an admission they were “wrong” about Jean-Michel Basquiat.

Louise Lawler’s Does Andy Warhol Make  Your Cry?, 1988, above, and a group of 24 Untitled Film Stills, by Cindy Sherman.

Elsewhere on the 2nd floor, the entire first gallery, titled “Public Images,” was made up of work by women Artists, as if to immediately counter the oft mentioned fact that a very small number of women Artists have been given retrospectives by MoMA. They have also installed a Betye Saar show, The Legends of Black Girl’s Window, across the atrium, centered around a recent acquisition by the museum of earlier work by Ms. Saar. It doesn’t include any of her more recent, powerful, work, some of which were presented in Washboards, 1997-2017, presented earlier this year at the New York Historical Society. While nothing will detract from her overdue appearance in a substantial show in another NYC museum, I was left wondering why they didn’t mount the long overdue full Betye Saar Retrospective, who is still going strong at 93, while she’s alive to enjoy it. Looking at MoMA’s permanent collection online, time and again, I found either a lack of any works by important Contemporary Artists (Ai Weiwei? Robert Frank’s Photographs? Leonardo Drew? Rod Penner? Gregory Halpern? Petra Collins?…None by any of them. The most recent work by Betye Saar, who was born in 1926, is from 1972- 47 years ago!), a lack of their important work, or a lack of depth of these works (2 works, each, by Henry Taylor, Francesca Woodman, 1 Painting and 10 Prints by Richard Estes, 2 Paintings, 2 Studies and 22 Drawings by Kerry James Marshall and Jean-Michel Basquiat– 0 Paintings, 2 Prints, 10 Drawings). A close look at what is installed in the Contemporary galleries on 2, which makes a point of being inclusive, strikes me as an attempt to rewrite MoMA’s perception in the face of criticism, and, some smoke and mirrors- how much will require more than 2 visits. In the meantime, go and make your own study.

Before the crowds. Parts of 4 galleries, Contemporary Art, 2nd floor. Member’s preview, October 19, 2019.

Tourism is a big deal for MoMA, the other NYC museums, and NYC. If the Art going public begins to perceive the reality that NYC is not the place to go see important Contemporary Art, one of the most popular periods of Art there is at the moment, this would be a disaster, especially after having just spent over 450 million dollars on MoMA, 2019. Smoke and mirrors might buy them some time, but whether they can overcome the self-inflicted damage they’ve already done remains to be seen. MoMA was incalculably helped to become THE Museum of Modern Art by a visionary curator, Alfred Barr, during its formative years. More recently, those in charge didn’t believe in the work of these Contemporary Artists at the time, didn’t have the vision and foresight Mr. Barr did, and so they missed the boat.

Mark Bradford, James Brown is Dead, 2007, Torn-and-pasted printed paper, 47 3/4 x 267 inches. I’ve made no secret of my admiration for Mr. Bradford, who I consider one of today’s most important Artists. In fairness, since I’ve mentioned some of the Artists omitted from their collection, MoMA owns 4 of Mr. Bradford’s larger works, 1 Sculpture, 1 Video and about 17 Multiples. So, I find it interesting they chose this work for display.

They, and their counterparts at the other NYC museums, may well have cost NYC it’s world leading status as THE Art capital of the world, we shall see. It’s too late now. Only mass, and massive, donations will help to close that gap now.

Though I am a paying member, I dreaded going to see the “new” MoMA, 2019. Such is the level of disdain I have for MoMA, 2006, which I consider to be the worst major museum building I’ve ever been in, it actually keeps me from going to see the Art! Maybe I’m just too used to MoMA, 2006 that MoMA, 2019 actually feels “not so bad.” Well Let’s see. MoMA, 2006 cost 858 million dollars according to The Times. I’ve seen 450 million as the cost of MoMA, 2019. That’s at least 1.3 BILLION dollars to make something I just said was “not so bad.”

Well, in 10 years, when MoMA decides that they “need more space,” which you know they will, I know where they can get 7,700 square feet of it, without tearing down anyone else’s building. Let’s say by then it will cost another 500 million to create MoMA, 2029. Then, they’ll have a chance at actually making the building “decent.”

Gee…Wait a minute. Between MoMA, 2006 and MoMa, 2019, they’ve spent 1.3 billion dollars? If they spent that on Art back when MoMA decided to build MoMA, 2006? You might actually have a collection of important Contemporary Art on the level with MoMA’s collection of Modern Art.

Instead? We got one of the biggest Architectural design mistake in NYC in my lifetime, right up there with not allowing the world’s greatest Architects, beginning with Frank Lloyd Wright, who’ve tried to build here a chance to build more than one building each. More? That the powers that be at MoMA thought putting a gigantic hole in the middle of the most expensive real estate on earth was a good idea, and then less than 10 years later tear down an actually good museum saying they “need more space” is plain hubris.

On second thought, maybe that hole does signify something about Manhattan after all. It signifies the hole in the collections of Contemporary Art at MoMA, and the other Big 4 NYC Museums. Smoke and mirrors aren’t going to be able to cloud that realization from many for very much longer.

“Be a happy man
I try the best I can
Or maybe I’m just looking for too much?”*

*-Soundtrack for this Post is “Hole In My Life” from Outlandos d’Amour by The Police, performed live in Paris in 1979, here-

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  1. In the same New York Magazine piece, the author, Alexandra Lange, concluded that MoMA, 2006, “…is a question, sublimely unanswered.” 13 years later, I’ve still got a few questions, which I ask in this piece. Living with them has been painful, not “sublime.” ↩
  2. Yes, the Tate Modern in London did something a little similar, but dissimilar enough to make the difference, and they’ve continually found good uses for it since it opened around the same time as MoMA, 2006. ↩
  3. Where did I get 7,700 square feet from as the size of this space? I’ve been unable to find out the official square footage of the atrium (interesting, no?). It hasn’t been published anywhere and those I asked at the museum didn’t know or wouldn’t tell me. So? I took it upon myself to calculate it. 110 feet is the published (known) height. I stepped off 35 paces from wall to wall and each of my paces is 24 inches. That’s 70 feet, and 7,700 square feet in total by my guesstimation. ↩