Stella Leaps Off Walls at The Whitney

Posted on January 31, 2016 by MsSusanB

Long view of gallery with The Grand Armada (IRS-6, 1X) (1989)

Leaping loops of bendable pipes! If you’ve never seen paintings that jump off the wall, get over to the Whitney’s Frank Stella: A Retrospective before it closes on February 7.

As Frank himself says, “Painting does not want to be confined by the boundaries of edge and surface.” Ok, no argument here. Nothing up here looks “confined”.

You emerge from the elevator face-to-face with his monumental masterpiece that’s nearly as long as the AMNH Titanosaur. It’s full of more visual nooks and crannies than a walk through Central Park and as vast as Wyoming. It’s a dazzling performance of color, line, and expanse. Before jumping into the rest of the show, the sheer size demands that you slow down to see the detail.

Detail of baroque, monumental 1999 painting, The Earthquake in Chile

Let’s admit, however, that the busy, unconfined artworks on the right form a gravitational force field that will lure even the most focused visitor away to explore the whirly color and 3-D protrusions. The label copy says Frank was inspired by Baroque music, letting his paintings function like soundless symphonies.

Through the bays, you catch glimpses of big Protractors and other Day-Glo creations that embody the over-the-top Eighties in New York.

You’ll also encounter of Frank’s most famous geometric meditations and early works from the pre-Soho days. From every angle and position, you see, feel, and meet some mighty heavy output. And it’s only the tip of the iceberg in terms of the full output of this 79-year-old powerhouse.

The Whitney’s solution to showing such a big, diverse, lively group of work was to take advantage of their new, moveable walls. The show’s designers moved all the walls away from the edges of the gallery so that visitors can see from one end to the other and glimpse the full spectrum of Frank’s artistic output.

Wall with works from the 1980s Moby Dick series

Look through the show on our Flickr feed of the show, with the works sorted into chronological order, and enjoy the curator audio guide on the Whitney website.

On the far east section of the gallery, the 3-D might comes into full view with selections from the Moby Dick series, roaring, raging works that push out from the white wall. The selections are impressive, but are only a small portion of Frank’s total output from that era.

For every one of the 95 works on the wall, there are dozens and dozens of works in each series – just as big and monumental – that didn’t get into the show. The curators told us that it was the biggest problem in mounting Frank’s retrospective: Their size demands that they be bolted into place, so to borrow them for the show, the parts of each huge work must be carefully disassembled and then reassembled. Installing each piece was a challenge akin to moving the Amenemhat II colossus into the Great Hall at The Met. Thank goodness that Frank’s team provided elaborate instruction manuals and how-to drawings.

Circus of Pure Feeling for Malevich, 4 Square Circus, 16 parts, 2009 has a view of the Hudson

Stella’s most recent work is situated in two special places of honor: His diminutive 2009 creations are parked right next to the Hudson River view – sixteen little curvy sculptural tributes to the collision between the precision of absolute geometry (courtesy of Mr. Malevich) and whimsy playfulness, represented by Mr. Calder, the Whitney’s circus master.

At the other end of the floor, his Black Star dominates on the outdoor balcony overlooking the Meatpacking District and the Standard Hotel. See the video below.

Great tribute, great art, great show at the New Whitney. And thanks for publishing the full catalog and essays online.

Buried in New York – Divas and Rare Jewelry

Posted on January 24, 2016 by MsSusanB

Henut does Queen Neferu’s hair, 11th dynasty (2051-2000 B.C.) Courtesy: Brooklyn Museum

While New York City is digging out from record snowfalls, there’s some great news about a few items that have been buried for centuries and are none the worse for wear – cosmetic boxes, bracelets, belts, and styling tips of the great divas (male and female) of ancient Egypt. The Metropolitan Museum of Art moved some gems out of the cavernous Egyptian wing – and borrowed a few things from Brooklyn and elsewhere – for its monumental tribute to the 12^th dynasty, Ancient Egypt Transformed: The Middle Kingdom, closing today.

Usually buried among the collections on the first floor, the curators pulled out some of our favorites from the galleries (along the way to the Costume Institute) and presented them as the spectacular showpieces they are. It warrants a shout-out to the effort it took to conceive, mount, and present this terrific show. What a way to leverage the collections that are right inside the city limits!

Queen or Princess as a Sphinx, 12th dynasty (1981-1802 B.C.) Once owned by Emperor Hadrian , later by a Cardinal. From Brooklyn Museum

The story of the transformations happening in Egypt’s 11^tthto 13th Dynasties (ca. 2030–1650 B.C.) is big (enough to fill twelve galleries), so we’re just highlighting a few of the things we noticed that modern People of Style might enjoy. Check out our Flickr site.

First, Brooklyn is in the house in the gallery dedicated to royal women: off to the side, there’s a limestone relief fragment (normally at the Brooklyn Museum of Art) showing Queen Nefuru having her tresses done by 11^th Dynasty celebrity stylist, Henut. The curators point out that a telltale sign of royals (men and women) is the distinctive winged-eye look that her makeup artist achieved in kohl. The styling is incised in limestone, showing the Queen getting ready to emulate Hathor, the goddess of love and romance. In those days (2051-2000 B.C.), only royals could sport the jeweled necklace or eye makeup style.

Nearby, Brooklyn also contributes a beautifully sculpted head, said to be broken off from a larger sphinx statue from the 12^th Dynasty – a protective guardian featuring a fantastic coif that only a queen or a princess would sport. It was all wigs, all the time.

372-piece cloisonné pectoral of Princess Sithathoryunet. Gold, carnelian, lapis lazuli, turquoise, and garnet. 12th dynasty (1887-1878 B.C.).

One of the most spectacular pieces is the 372-piece cloisonné pectoral worn by Princess Sithathoryunet. It’s a 12^th Dynasty masterwork (1887-1878 B.C.). of gold, carnelian, lapis lazuli, turquoise, and garnet. The piece is magical and protective, but instead of being inlaid with the name of the princess, it features the name of the king. The idea is that the king himself is being protected when the royal daughter wears it – not the diva herself. You get what you pay for.

She also had another set of formal jewelry — a cowerie shell girdle and matching bracelet of gold, carnelian, feldspar, and crystal. The imitation shells had small pellets inside, which would have made a tinkling sound when she walked. The same is true for the feline-headed set of jewelry of gold and amethyst.

Feline-Headed Girdle of gold and amethyst from 12th Dynasty (1887-1813 B.C.).

Sithathoryunet kept these and other treasures in a beautiful jewelry box, which is displayed nearby alongside a cosmetic box. The Met reconstructed the wood boxes by putting the ebony, ivory, gold, carnelian, blue faience, and silver back into place. Magnificent. Look for it all when these spectacular items go back on display at the back of the Egyptian Wing later this year.

By this time in Middle Kingdom culture, the elites started copying the royals, so some of the buried treasures that the Met found on its early 20^th century expeditions belonged more to aspirational upper classes than the royals themselves. Check out the cosmetic case and mirror belonging to Amenemhat IV’s royal butler, Kemeni. Or the faience necklace worn by Wah, the overseer who served Meketre, the royal chief steward serving kings in both the 11^th and 12^th Dynasties.

The Met found a bonanza of fantastic reality art in Meketre’s tomb – so much that only a few pieces were brought up to the second floor for the special show. The show features a real-life depiction of a grainery and sport fishing boat, but if you look on the first floor as you walk through to the Costume Institute, you’ll see many more boats and several more rooms of day-to-day life – all meant to serve Meketre in the next world.

Cosmetic box of the royal butler, Kemeni, with four ointment jars and a mirror. 12th dynasty (1814-1805 BC.)

The Met has meticulously documented this show online. Spend a snow day (or not) by taking a tour through all twelve galleries on the Met’s web site and listening to the curators’ take on the on-line audio guide, which also features photos of each of the objects. Here’s where you can search the exhibition objects and find more detail.

Hear the behind-the-scenes chit-chat from the curators on the museum’s blog, including how the Egyptians feasted and how the digital team created the replica of the pyramid complex at the center of the show.

MoMA Connects Music and Modernism

Posted on January 16, 2016 by MsSusanB

A decade apart – 1957 Stratocaster and Avendon’s 1967 posters of the Beatles

The MoMA Design Department had a brilliant idea – to tell the history of 20^th century music culture by pulling out objects and two-dimensional art from the museum’s rich collection. How did modernism and music influence one another? See Making Music Modern: Design for Eye and Ear, on view through January 18.

There’s still time to catch some demos of the Scopitone, the Stratocaster, and the Mechanical Flux Orchestra inside the gallery this weekend.

Although a lot of the buzz in the gallery is over visitors’ recollections of the turntables, radios, and album covers on display, the curators do everyone a favor by putting the mod, mod world into historical context at the start of the show.

Early Edison sound experiments, films of Loie Fuller and Josephine Baker, and a poster of Yvette Guilbert from the can-can era remind everyone that shocking live performances, revolutionary music trends (go, ragtime!), and print designs that pushed the limits don’t belong exclusively to the mod, punk, or techno eras.

Early pop music innovations: sheet music and Edison wax cylinders

Tucked into side panels and corners are photos of costumed interplanetary performers of the Triadic Ballet at the Bauhaus in 1922 and early Russian avant-garde takes on the advent of radio, the broadcast and communications technology that changed entertainment forever.

These were worlds where artists and designers did it all – fine art, typography, industrial design, textiles, and performance. There are even some snippets of early acoustic-enhancing textiles on display, courtesy of Anni Albers. Design and music mixed, right from the start of the last century.

The sleek, streamlined radios, microphones, and Rural Electrification poster from the 1930s are presented as icons of the earliest era of broadcasting, with reminders from the curators that the designs were made to rescue the radio from its early haywire, spaghetti-city look that first appeared on 1920s garage workbenches across the country. Make it look nice, and you can bring it inside, where we can all enjoy it.

Stylish: 1932 Bakelite radio by Wells Coates and a 1939 Unidyne mic by Benjamin Baker.

Throughout the Fifties and Sixties, music and design seemed to go hand in hand. Consider the Sixties revolution in turntable and speaker design – everything fit for a super-modern lifestyle of easy listening with jazz and high-concept percussion album covers nearby.

The invention of the Fender Stratocaster guitar revolutionized the sound and look of early rock and roll with its iconic whammy bar and performances that represented out and out rebellion. Although the Stratocaster was invented in the 1950s, it’s appropriately displayed in front of posters of Bob Dylan, The Yardbirds, and Avedon’s Beatles – an innovation adopted by Buddy Holly that inspired the next generation.

Where pop music and art come together – Sixties album covers, including those by Richard Hamilton and Warhol

If you really want to dig into the details, there are dozens of famous album covers and posters on display with tribute paid to their designers. Among the luminaries are pop-god Richard Hamilton’s “White Album” for the Beatles, Warhol’s “Sticky Fingers” cover for the Stones, and Rauchenberg’s design for the vinyl disk inside the Talking Heads’ “Speaking in Tongues” album. The chronicle of the Fillmore East posters is a book unto itself.

And Mr. Jobs’ imprint is never forgotten at MoMA. An early version of his iPod is displayed right next to the Seventies invention from Japan that rocked the music world – the Sony Walkman.

If you can’t make it, take a look at the show through our Flickr views. We’ve grouped the items in chronological order.

And check out the excellent MoMA blog posts about the show on MoMA’s “Inside/Out” platform, where curators go to share enthusiasm about the hunt for the Stratocaster, famous rock posters, and other gems from the Fifties and Sixties. Leave your own comments, reflection on music and design, and memories right there on the MoMA website.

Before Walkmans and iPods

When Folk Music Ruled New York

Posted on January 9, 2016 by MsSusanB

Washington Square Sunday folk singing, early 1960s. Courtesy: MCNY/Nat Norman

The large map inside the exhibition tells the entire story of how a folk music revival germinated on a few blocks in Greenwich Village in the 1950s and exploded into a national mania for twelve-string guitars, songs of protest, and music that paid tribute to deep, deep roots of the American experience.

The Museum of the City of New York tells a fascinating tale with its multimedia exhibition, Folk City: New York and the Folk Music Revival, through this weekend. Take a look at some of the show’s highlights in our Flickr album.

Ledbelly’s historic twelve-string guitar

The show ties together the tale of how Woody Guthrie and Alan Lomax got the ball rolling by shining a spotlight on Appalachian and Southern purveyors of down-home folk singing and inspiring a generation to look back, pay tribute, and carry it forward. MCNY has plenty of listening stations scattered throughout the gallery, offering up rare recordings that speak to the roots of popular music of the Sixties.

It’s a revelation to listen to Lomax’s 1934 recording of Ledbelly singing Good Night Irene and Midnight Special long before Pete Seeger, The Weavers, and Johnny Cash catapulted them to the charts in the Fifties and Sixties.

Flyers, broadsides, and other paraphernalia from Greenwich Village clubs paper the walls and vitrines, as the show steps through the story of how that sleepy NYC neighborhood transformed itself into a destination for the likes of Bob Dylan and other activist-artists who inspired a generation.

Photo of Dylan at Kettle of Fish Bar at 114 MacDougal Street in 1964 above his sheet music

1964 photo Dylan at Kettle of Fish Bar at 114 MacDougal Street above his sheet music

Music studios, clubs, publishing houses, coffee houses, and cold-water flats were all jammed into a few city blocks that functioned like a 24/7 open-mic night. Back in the late Fifties and early Sixties, music was pouring out of nearly every door on Bleecker Street and MacDougal.

The convergence spawned a network of producers and publishers who felt it was their mission to bring folk music to a wider audience – uptown at Town Hall, on alternative radio stations across the country, and executives at the big labels. Some of the highlights at the back of the gallery are Dylan’s handwritten lyrics for Blowin’ In the Wind and Mr. Tambourine Man.

Political battles are found at every turn in the installation, from Seeger’s encounter with McCarthy’s House Un-American Activities Committee to inspirational performances by Pete, Odetta or Peter, Paul & Mary at historic marches and protests. The music was always there, intertwined with the events of the day.

First edition of “Sing Out!” magazine, 1950

Although folk and roots music inspired artists like The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, the MCNY show notes that after Dylan went electric and the British invaded New York, the folk music juggernaut lost some of its steam. No matter. You can still see it all recreating itself on Bleecker Street at The Bitter End any night of the week, listen to an up-and-coming singer-songwriter, and view lots of those historic posters on the back wall after MCNY’s show closes.

Navajo Jewelry Masters Offer Glittering World at Customs House

Posted on January 8, 2016 by MsSusanB

Bracelet of coral, opal, suglite, lapis, turquoise, gold, and silver by Raymond Yazzie. Courtesy: NMAI/Knight collection. Photo: S. Franks

If you’d like an immersion into a chamber of glistening silver and gems, enter the National Museum of the American Indian’s exhibition of stunning beauty and tranquility — Glittering World: Navajo Jewelry of the Yazzie Family.

The Smithsonian is providing New York with a unique chance to view 300 remarkable necklaces, bracelets, rings, and buckles from a New Mexico family of artists known for catapulting Navajo symbols, colors, and gems into a modern-art context.

Lapis and gold bracelet by Lee Yazzie, 1984. Photo: E. Aboroso, NMAI.

The focus is on Lee and Raymond Yazzi, brothers whose award-winning, intricate creations are sought by collectors worldwide. You’ll see five magnificent pieces as soon as you enter, including work by their sister, Mary Marie – representing lifetimes of master craftsmanship inspired by the mountains, sun, sky, spirits, and family in Gallup, New Mexico.

Photomurals inside the door will transport you to the red rock monuments of Navajo Nation, 1950s trading posts along the old Route 66, and maps to turquoise mines that have supplied native peoples with high-end bedazzlers since 300 A.D. The Smithsonian will be returning it all to private collectors after January 10, so be sure to enter this beautiful realm before then.

Watch this testament to artistic inspiration and dedication to beauty:

And take a trip to the Navajo world to hear more on a lifetime of creation:

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Monthly Archives: January 2016