rediscovered

Alma Thomas 1973 Red Rose Cantata

Thomas  was little-known until her work was suggested (by my boss!) to decorate the interior of the Obamas' living quarters in the White House. Now she's all the rage. This painting hangs in the NGA and another is situated prominently in the Philips. Oh, art market, how fickle you are.

Her work reminds me of Yayoi Kusama, of repetition, of a scarf that K owns... Her rectangles look like torn, delicate fragments, and I love how things begin to come apart when they are repeated over and over.

digesting the art

Tony Cragg 1991 Subcommittee

Subcommittee is a large outdoor sculpture in the area immediately surrounding the HMSG. When I first approached it I was reminded of wooden doll heads, but actually it is an enlarged rubber stamp set. The title conjures ideas of bureaucracy, hierarchy, and slow moving mechanisms: appropriate for the National Mall? It also reminds me of gossiping heads, huddled in a mass. I feel like the stamps have been forgotten in the bustle, as if to comment on the irrelevance of old systems, or the inevitability of younger generations replacing older ones.

Also, I eat my lunch here. 

I like to watch people interact with the sculpture, especially because this one in particular is not so abstract and people generally relate to it or at least finding it aesthetically pleasing. Today a precocious preteen approached me in the middle of my potato salad and asked me to take a picture of her and her friends as they 'like, just did some crazy pose or something.'

I am for an art...

I am for an art that is political-erotical-mystical, that does something other than sit on its ass in a museum.
I am for an art that grows up not knowing it is art at all, an art given the chance of having a staring point of zero.

Claes Oldenburg, 1961

look

Every single time we have looked at images together, my boss (senior curator at the hmsg) firmly reminds me to look at the art. Look for patterns. Look for visual comparisons. Make connections that cannot necessarily be made with words. One of my favorite things about the study of art is the ability to understand expression without language.

 

Shkolnik 1910s The Provinces

These images come from an exhibition of modern Russian art - they are images that were not available internationally under Stalin because they were considered too radical and they are often still mysterious and difficult to obtain. The catalog is organized so that viewers may visually understand the origins of Russian modernism and the connections between Russian folklife and Russia art.

hint: if you don't see it, look at the hats.

quote of the day

When one ceases to feel, I am of the opinion that one should keep quiet. And I would like it understood that I am not accusing or condemning lack of originality as such. I am only saying that I do not take particular note of the empty moments of my life, that it may be unworthy for any man to crystallize those which seem to him to be so. I shall, with your permission, ignore the description of that room, and many more like it.

André Breton, on Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment

quote of the day

On Helter Skelter: LA art in the 90s:

It was worth it. It was one hell of a night. We had some very interesting people show up. We had some weird people show up. We even had a woman jumping out of a trash can every so often completely naked.

                    Richard Koshalek, HMSG Director

ahh

There is free art being handed out in London? Please someone get me one of these.