Art and the Church

Church art is not always art.
Art that happens to be placed in church, is art in the church,
But not Church art.
Church art that is shown in museums, remains church art in museums. Art for the Church is not always regarded as art by the Church.
The Church does not always want art.
Art is art without the Church.
Great Church art is art in the church and for the church.

- Heinz Mack

Quoted in Sir Christopher Frayling, "Art and Religion in the Modern West: Some Perspectives", The Tanner Lectures on Human Values Delivered at Clare Hall, Cambridge November 11–12, 2009.

Categories:

Subject | Matter : Warhol Double Take

Self Portrait, 1986, The Modern Museum of Fort Worth

Looking back at my post from the Warhol exhibit opening last year at the Rose Art Museum, I was surprised to see how little of the show I captured. Although due in part to my unfamiliarity with the artist, I think the real reason I refused to delve into Warhol's work was because I couldn't see anything more than surface matter. I never liked Warhol, no matter how much I was faced with his work. I found it garish, popular, over-priced, and steeped in luxury and extravagance--the kind of art that I avoid.

It wasn't until I took on a Warhol project that I began to see more than the silver fright wig and the gauzy celebrity portraits. To discover meaning in his work, it took more for me than simply looking, and that's exactly what he didn't want anyone to do. It's been said before that Warhol is someone who hid in the limelight, and it's true. Warhol made sure to construct a facade as distracting and captivating as could be, something that reflected a flattering mirror onto a society, a sort of Dorian Gray reversal. 

"It's been said before that Warhol is someone who hid in the limelight, and it's true."

I recently read a discussion dialogue between several Warhol scholars and came upon a section where they were talking about Warhol's Interview magazine. Started by Warhol in 1969, the magazine is at once a tribute and exploitation of the time's most glamorous celebrities. As Benjamin Buchloh argues, Interview cannot be read like reportorial magazines. It doesn't discuss current politics, or social issues, or other news. The people who appeared on the cover appeared as an "affirmation of the rich, the powerful, and the glorious, which says that the picture has no meaning, the personality doesn't stand for anything. The personalities are just another type of subject matter." [1]

What has always bothered me the most about Warhol's work is that it makes me painfully aware of the fact that I am participating in something superficial. Warhol used repetition and beauty, and it lured viewers in. It lures me in too, even if I try to deny it. Last year at the opening of Image Machine: Andy Warhol And Photography, I reveled in the aura that Warhol's world creates. I soaked in the the bright colors, museum mood lighting, and the images of famous people I didn't really know. I drank the Kool Aid, and liked it. Then I walked away none the wiser. Is it possible to disassociate with the subject matter? Not really. If I'm not feeling uncomfortable, I kind of feel like I'm missing something crucial about it.  

I hesitate to make this deeper than Warhol ever intended, because I think, in part, Warhol subscribed to the surface world. But I think it would also be a loss to ignore what lies beneath.  


[1] Discussion with Gary Garrels, Benjamin Buchloh, Trevor Fairbrother, Rainer Crone, and Nan Rosenthal, in The Work of Andy Warhol, (Seattle: Bay Press, 1989), pp. 125-139.

Categories: Andy Warhol

The Problem of Being Original

As I have continued my work in research and writing post-graduation, it has become more and more apparent to me just how difficult it is to be original. All it takes to research a topic is one Google search, and one had likely yielded hundreds of thousands, if not millions of materials with which to work.

In the museum field, I find myself asking why the research I yield has to be penned by me, when I can just cite my sources. Even worse, I wonder whether it is not futile to write something when it has already been written more thoughtfully or succinctly.

This problem is certainly not isolated to writing. Artists, too, stumble upon the problem of being unique in a world that has seen endless visual repetitions. Many artists are preoccupied by this problem, and it has catered into their artistic practices (see Charline von Heyl's manipulation of visual imagery or read about such problems in Thomas Mann's Doctor Faustus).

I remember in one of my high school art classes learning about the importance of using visual references to assist in building compositions. For one particular project, where we had to make a large-scale pastel drawing using extreme one-point perspective, I went searching for an image of a person reaching out their hand towards the camera. I envisioned a beautiful woman, trying to escape the attention of the camera. In my mind, one hand was reaching out and the other was covering her face. Such an image was nearly replicated in a matter of seconds with an image-search of a few descriptive words. I know that this doesn't sound surprising, but it is an intensely eerie feeling to discover that someone has already had the thought that you believed was your own. I couldn't find the reference image that I found, but I included here my final product. In an attempt to make it my own, I made her shirt blue and her hair red and curly (not an incredibly innovative interpretation). The lesson was: all it takes is an image search to find similar photographic reproductions.

This is the lesson I took with me ever since. I could find anything I wanted--about anything, anyone, anywhere--so long as it existed. And everything exists.

Occasionally, I will stumble upon research that yields little results. It is a joy, not a disappointment. Suddenly, I have an opportunity to contribute, to do some real detective work, which involves synthesizing information, travel, physical investigation, and talking to people. I long to get away from my computer and immerse myself in this kind of work.

When speaking with others in the academic sphere about this, they tend to reply that the solution is to get a doctoral degree, become an expert in something. Because that's where the digging happens. While I recognize this, I worry that a PhD's area of expertise has become so specific, that the success of the research is minimized. It is one thing to spend a life time studying Cézanne, but another to study the repetition of the color blue in Cézanne's still lives between 1866-9. As art scholars add to our history, I wonder, is there anything left to say?

Categories: Art, Education, Personal, Spontaneous

Rose Art Museum: Warhol, Whitten, and More

This fall marks the one-year anniversary of Chris Bedford's position as director of the museum, and also marks my first full year at Brandeis. Though I have only witnessed three seasons of exhibitions, I am amazed by how much has changed at this museum haunted by the not-so-long-ago drama of its past. 

On Tuesday, students, faculty, and the public flocked to the Rose Art Museum to celebrate the opening of the fall exhibitions, five in total, including: “Image Machine: Andy Warhol and Photography;” “Light Years: Jack Whitten, 1971-1973;” “Omer Fast: 5000 Feet is the Best;” “Collection in Focus: Al Loving;” and “Minimal and More: 60s and 70s Sculpture 

from the Collection.”

Rose Art Museum Opening Reception, Photo/Mike Lovett

The reception was graced by featured artists Jack Whitten and Omer Fast, the latter holding a talk just before the museum opening. (Check out Omer Fast's work featured at the Rose here!) I have always been tentative to explore the film medium, even in observation. It is such a stigmatized medium, especially in American culture. I was pleasantly surprised by the insightful, often emotional works Fast discussed during his talk. Through the deconstruction of film footage, Fast often recomposes or distorts film in such a way as to make the viewer ponder and question the viewing sensation. While many of his films prove narrational upon first observation, it is the subtle but often overlooked distortion of film and audio that captures the focus of Fast's work.

Opening Reception: so excited to work with Dustin, the other curatorial intern!

I had to stop for photo ops in front of Jack Whitten's incredible painting The Pariah Way (1973) featured in the main gallery space. The work glows with an iridescence and metallic quality that I can't quite figure out. Whitten's exhibit includes paintings that the artist had never seen stretched on canvas before, let alone publicly displayed. It was a joy to watch the artist interact with his own work.

Prints that Pop: Students dressed in mod attire in honor of the Warhol exhibit

The Warhol exhibit brings out several themes that are often left unexplored in Warhol's work. Image Machine explores Warhol's use of photography in his explorations of these themes. Curated by Joe Ketner, former Rose director, the exhibit shows a masterly knowledge of the Warhol works in the collection. 

Saturday Disaster (1964), one of Warhol's most displayed works in the Rose's collection.

The collection's Saturday Disaster is placed in the front entrance room of the Foster wing. I have grappled with this work since I first viewed it. Even in contrast to the nudes on display, I find it a highly controversial statement... Stay tuned for more thoughts on this.

My favorite aspect of the show was one of the prints from one of Warhol's many voyeuristic filmings of his friends, which was counter-imposed on his self-portrait wallpaper. I got a kick out of watching visitors enter the room and dodge the work, their discomfort in facing Warhol's display of candid nudity so humorously apparent (not that I can blame them, it's a surprise as you round the corner). 

At the end of the day, though, I think it was the cow wallpaper and Warhol "silver clouds" that stole the show. I'm a complete sucker for anything interactive, so playing with the balloons as they floated around the back staircase (which was delightfully lined with printed Warhol wallpaper) was my favorite part of the opening. I didn't know much about the balloons before the opening, in fact, I was somehow convinced they were packing materials during installation! Anyway, if you're curious, click here.

The opening was a success! The museum is alive with vibrant displays of color, textures, light, and sound, no doubt due in part to Warhol's colorful display. I am thrilled to be a part of this constantly evolving institution alongside those who are working so diligently to preserve and exhibit the rich culture of decades past. Things have been so crazy leading up to the opening though that I've hardly begun my curatorial work. Let the research begin!

While we're on that note, check out this awesome upcoming symposium at Brandeis University and the Rose Art Museum next month: 

Jack Whitten:  Painting, Politics, Technology

Saturday, October 5, 2:00 pm

Carl and Ruth Shapiro Admissions Center, Presentation Room

Featuring:

Rose Art Museum Curator at Large Katy Siegel

Jack Whitten 

Mark Bradford

Artforum Editor Michelle Kuo 

Mingus Mapps

University of Virginia Associate Professor Howard Singerman

For more information about the Rose Art Museum and current exhibitions, visit http://www.brandeis.edu/rose/

Categories: Al Loving, Andy Warhol, Art Education, Art Museum, Howard Singerman, Intern, Jack Whitten, Katy Siegel, Mark Bradford, Michelle Kuo, Mingus Mapps, Minimal, New Exhibition, Omer Fast, Pop Art, Rose Art Museum

Snapshots of the Zimmerman House

I had the pleasure this summer of spending time at the Zimmerman House in Manchester, New Hampshire, as a part of my internship at the Currier Museum of Art. Working with the incredibly dedicated house docents, we worked on improving improvisational methods during tours. I went on several tours of the house with different docents. Each visit was an entirely different experience. I am finally beginning to understand why Frank Lloyd Wright has such a cult following!   Over the past few months, I watched as the summer blooms came to life in the garden, and the greens became exotic and lush. It is a magical and mysterious place.
I am constantly amazed at the fine detail work that went into the design of the house. Even to an untrained eye, elements of the house that appear effortless prove ruthlessly intricate upon closer inspection. From every angle, the house provides a kaleidoscope of shapes and lines. This is my favorite view of the house, seen from the top stair of the far left end of the carport.
Like my intern supervisor pointed out on my first visit to the house, the open view onto the lawn in the backyard from the carport is like a painting that is constantly in transition. The windows, too, with Wright's signature geometric glass panels, provides frames from which to view the yard and garden. To think that Wright designed this house without ever setting foot on the plot!

Reserve your ticket for a tour of the Zimmerman House here.

Categories: Architecture, Art Education, Currier Museum of Art, Frank Lloyd Wright, Historic House, Manchester, New Hampshire, Organic Architecture, Zimmerman House

Joan Mitchell

Drips, spattering, globs of paint smeared over larger-than-life canvases. Joan Mitchell is a powerhouse.

Mitchell is known for her abstract, streaky works that manage to convey sometimes incredibly powerful, provocative emotions.

Ladybug (1957)
Museum of Modern Art

During the period between 1960 and 1964, Mitchell moved away from the all-over style and bright colors of her earlier compositions to concentrate on sombre hues and dense central masses. The marks on these works were said to be extraordinary: “the paint flung and squeezed on to the canvases, spilling and spluttering across their surfaces and smeared on with the artist’s fingers.”

Cous Cous (1961-62)
Currier Museum of Art

As a contemporary of famous artist Jackson Pollock, her work displays an equal amount of strength and vitality. To be quite honest, I much prefer Mitchell's  slow, deliberate methods to Pollock's haphazard drips, and how could anyone dismiss the varied, unexpected use of color on her canvases?

Leading visitors to Mitchell's work Cous Cous, at the Currier, the response is often "My child could paint better." But I always try to talk about the importance of the process. From this vantage point Mitchell's process becomes laborious, her conscious efforts show in every brush stroke. She said that she wanted her paintings “to convey the feeling of the dying sunflower” and “some of them come out like young girls, very coy … they’re very human.” Perhaps that is what draws me to Mitchell's work over Pollock's. There is something alive, organic, representational. It doesn't matter that you can't pin it on a particular object or figure, but you can relate somehow.

Yves (1991)

 Thus far, my favorite work of Mitchell's is No Birds. An admirer of Vincent van Gogh’s work, Mitchell observed in one of his final paintings, Wheatfield with Crows (1890), the symbology of death, suicide, hopelessness, depression and darkness. With her sense that Wheatfield with Crows was a suicide note she painted a painting called No Birds as a response and homage. 

No Birds (1987)

Want more? Check out Mitchell's work and legacy at the Joan Mitchell Foundation.

Categories: Abstract Expressionism, Art, Automatic, Feminist, Jackson Pollock, Joan Mitchell, Spontaneous, Surrealism, Vincent van Gogh

Woman Power: Louise Nevelson

According to the National Endowment for the Arts, a study completed between 1990 and 2005 showed that the art world remains largely male-dominated. Disheartening news for a young female professional. 

Some interesting numbers:

1990: 50.7% of all visual artists were female, and women held 53.1% of art degrees. Okay.... But 80% of art faculty were males, and male artists received 73% of all art grants or fellowships.

2004:  Of the 415 works on New York’s Museum of Modern Art’s 4th and 5th floors, less than 5% - were by women. Is this a reflection of the past or the present?

2006: Of 297 solo art shows in New York in 2006, only 23% were by women.

Today: Only 4% of museum acquisitions are by women artists. In curated exhibits, museums average about 15% work by women, and .003% minority women. 

As I've been researching works in my museum's collection, I've found only a handful of works produced by female artists. But of the handful, I found some incredibly powerful, and inspiring women.

"I am a woman's liberation." -Louise Nevelson

Louise Nevelson rocked my world.

First Personage (1956)
Brooklyn Museum

Nevelson had some serious attitude about life, undoubtedly influenced by major trials and tribulations she faced throughout her life. Moving from Russia to Maine as a child, I can only imagine how bizarre a transition that must of been. The family experienced hardship upon their arrival (umm, I can only picture Maine in the early 20th century as akin to the Yukon...). Nevelson's father, eventually built his career as a lumbaryard realtor and owner.

Sky Cathedral (1958)
Museum of Modern Art

What strikes me about Nevelson is the way she admired her mother, a seemingly eccentric primadonna who paraded around their hometown, Rockland, Maine, dressed in bright colors, heavy makeup, and laden with jewelry. Looking at pictures of Nevelson in her later years, one can see the effects of her mother's influence. I admire Nevelson for moving out of her small hometown, and her motivation to pursue a career in art, a profession that was embedded in taboo and stigmas. Even more, she not only was she living in a land far far away from the dynamic art world, but she was already ostracized in her town as a Jewish Russian immigrant.

Dream Houses XXXIII (1972)
Currier Museum of Art

Her work is mysterious, sensual, and alluring (as I can imagine Nevelson might have been herself). She was working during a period dominated by powerful male artists, and yet her work departed from the work of the other abstract expressionists, like Alexander Calder, David Smith, or Theodore Roszak, all of whom were weilding metal and steel. Nevelson found her medium in wood--a material so embedded in her personal life and which was in part attractive for an artist trying to make ends meet.

Untitled (c. 1985)

Limiting her palette to mostly black (she also worked with white and gold at times), the color was to her the totality--it contained all colors, yet was poised and aristocratic. Black meant the potential for greatness. A NYT review of a show featuring Nevelson's work back in 2007 at the Jewish Museum,  the geometry of Cubism and the epic scale of Abstract Expressionism with the logic of dreams." 

Categories: Alexander Calder, Art, David Smith, Feminist, Louise, Minority, Museum, Nevelson, Theodore Roszak