Sunday, September 26, 2010
New York City for the day
There are so many great art exhibitions in NYC right now - Patricia and I took the Chinatown Bus in to the city to take in a few of them.
All the exhibits right now seem intent on driving home just how hard the artists worked to create the product they were looking for, and how their work developed over time. The Design Center in SoHo features drawings by Gerhard Richter, in an exhibition called "Lines which do not exist." They are thought pieces and experiments that he drew before paintings. To me, they are marvels of imagination and learning, and make me realize how tight and circumscribed my own doodling in my sketch books seems in comparison. Lesson: Do not compare your sketch books to those of a truly imaginative artist.
Also in SoHo, we went to the Status Factory of Ron English, which features his high energy anti-corporate snarkiness. I'd heard him in a lecture at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art just a week or so ago. He portrays himself as the outsider, taking pot-shots at timeworn slogans and images through what he calls Popaganda, the Art and Crimes of Ron English. It is good fun, and I especially enjoyed his creepy, sensuous, UV-enhanced cave and his takeoff on Happy Face:
From there, uptown to the Morgan Library and Gallery for an exhibition of the early work of Roy Lichtenstein, showing how he developed his signature style over time, and how much of the power of his work comes from the contrast of the intense emotional situations of his comic-book images with the mechanical, impersonal method of their presentation.
Finally we ended up at the MOMA, the Museum of Modern Ar,t for the exhibition of works by Matisse with special emphasis on forensic methods (ir, uv, etc, etc) to determine what layers of paint are under the final work and what does that tell us about how meticulously he worked to improve the composition and appearance of his images - and how, as time passed, he more and more was willing to allow the changes to be apparent in the finished work. Still, I felt that with all this emphasis on analysis of individual works, the sheer joy and beauty Matisse presents was somehow diminished.
Well, for all that, it was a gorgeous day for walking in the city and ravishing all this incredible art. Now I have tomorrow to pack, and on Monday I am off to China. Oh my!
Relaxing in the Sculpture Garden of the Museum of Modern Art
All the exhibits right now seem intent on driving home just how hard the artists worked to create the product they were looking for, and how their work developed over time. The Design Center in SoHo features drawings by Gerhard Richter, in an exhibition called "Lines which do not exist." They are thought pieces and experiments that he drew before paintings. To me, they are marvels of imagination and learning, and make me realize how tight and circumscribed my own doodling in my sketch books seems in comparison. Lesson: Do not compare your sketch books to those of a truly imaginative artist.
Also in SoHo, we went to the Status Factory of Ron English, which features his high energy anti-corporate snarkiness. I'd heard him in a lecture at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art just a week or so ago. He portrays himself as the outsider, taking pot-shots at timeworn slogans and images through what he calls Popaganda, the Art and Crimes of Ron English. It is good fun, and I especially enjoyed his creepy, sensuous, UV-enhanced cave and his takeoff on Happy Face:
Creepy-ness in Ron English's UV-lit cave
I'm wearing English's take on the ubiquitous Happy Face
From there, uptown to the Morgan Library and Gallery for an exhibition of the early work of Roy Lichtenstein, showing how he developed his signature style over time, and how much of the power of his work comes from the contrast of the intense emotional situations of his comic-book images with the mechanical, impersonal method of their presentation.
Lichtenstein also did a couple of KNOCK or NOK or SLAM additions to doors, like this. I think I would like to try that on my apartment door too, and see what kind of reaction it gets (if any).
Finally we ended up at the MOMA, the Museum of Modern Ar,t for the exhibition of works by Matisse with special emphasis on forensic methods (ir, uv, etc, etc) to determine what layers of paint are under the final work and what does that tell us about how meticulously he worked to improve the composition and appearance of his images - and how, as time passed, he more and more was willing to allow the changes to be apparent in the finished work. Still, I felt that with all this emphasis on analysis of individual works, the sheer joy and beauty Matisse presents was somehow diminished.
This little girl just plopped down, and was totally into her painting of the Matisse flowers!
Well, for all that, it was a gorgeous day for walking in the city and ravishing all this incredible art. Now I have tomorrow to pack, and on Monday I am off to China. Oh my!
