Surrealists Get Out Pencils and Scissors at The Morgan

Posted on April 21, 2013 by MsSusanB

César Moro’s Adorée au grand air (1935). Source: The Getty Research Institute.

Automatic drawing, games, rubbings, collage, and dreams are all chronicled in the spectacular Drawing Surrealism show closing today at The Morgan. It’s an encyclopedia of what you can do with a scissors and pencil and demonstrates that these forms of play were critical to the most famous Surrealist works by superstars Ernst, Dali, Masson, and their European colleagues.

Some of the off-the-wall creations born out of the Surrealist’s drawing games eventually made their way into big-time oil paintings. The curators also contend that the monochrome grey-scale of some famous paintings is actually a tribute to the importance they attached to charcoal and pencil media.

The show, co-organized with the LA County Museum of Art, is the first time that Surrealist drawings have been the subject of an exhibition, and curators make quite the case for drawing technology transfer by showing us how these techniques (especially collage) spread to the rest of the world.

Man Ray’s Safety Pin (1936). Ink and pencil on paper. Source: MoMA. © 2013 Man Ray Trust / Artists Rights Society (ARS)

One of the genuine revelations is the work and importance of César Moro, a Parisian-trained Peruvian who brought Surrealism to Mexico and the rest of Latin America.

You can’t help but be struck by the forerunners of Pop: Man Ray’s Safety Pin sure looks like a precursor to Claes Oldenburg’s 1970s Clothespin, and there’s no question about the influence of Eduardo Paolozzi’s 1940s Surrealist-influenced collages: He and Richard Hamilton invented Pop Art in Britiain.

When the show was installed at LACMA, several contemporary artists were asked to create Surrealist-inspired works. Listen as Alexandra Grant, Mark Licari, and Stas Orlovski show and tell how European mind-and-hand games of the 1930s inspire work today:

Get Out into the Fresh Air (in Italy and France)

Posted on April 15, 2013 by MsSusanB

Théodore Caruelle d’Aligny’s Edge of a Wood (1850). Oil on canvas done northeast of Paris. The flattening technique was developed with his hiking companion, Corot.

There’s nothing like stepping out into the fresh air to get a little perspective – exactly the view taken by the group of landscape painters featured in the Met’s exhibition, The Path of Nature: French Paintings from the Wheelock Whitney Collection, 1785-1850, on display in the Lehman Wing for a few more days.

Most of them feature Italian or French landscapes, and you’ll be surprised to know these tranquil, beautiful visions of nature were considered a little bit radical at the time. Apparently, there once was a time when painters didn’t travel beyond the studio, and certainly did not work outdoors.

Installation view of The Gate to the Temple of Luxor (1836) by La Bouëre. After Napolean invaded Egypt, the exotic Middle East became all the rage. The missing obelisk ended up in the Place de la Concorde.

The artists in this collection (gifted to the Met 10 years ago by Mr. Whitney) literally went on the road, took to the hills, and created spectacularly perfect outdoor oils to record a bit of the exotic, wild, and ruined visions they experienced. And it all happened long before Monet went outside to serialize his haystacks.

If you’ve ever wanted to take a Grand Tour of the wonders of Europe and the Middle East, now is your chance. Check out the Met’s online gallery of these works, and enter the mountains, hillsides, parks, ruins, and vistas with new 18^th and 19^th century friends.

If you have some time, you can listen to the Met’s curator, Asher Miller, discuss how adventure travel inspired a generation of painters to break the rules.

Abstraction All-Stars Featured in MoMA’s LinkedIn

Posted on April 13, 2013 by MsSusanB

Installation view of the network behind the birth of abstract art, according to MoMA and Columbia Business School

As soon as you arrive at Inventing Abstraction 1910-1925, MoMA’s soon-to-close extravaganza featuring the relationships among painters, poets, composers, and dance innovators, you encounter a big, bold infographic on the wall – a web showing who was collaborating with, influencing, viewing, and reading each other as “abstract art” was born.

The stunning exhibit is a who’s who of modern art, with work by Picasso, Kandinsky, and Malevich (of course), but pulls in works from lesser-known early innovators from Britain, Poland, Italy, and America (hi, Georgia!) and across disciplines. So many connections, so little time! The show has books, music, pioneers of modern dance…just about everything.

If you can’t get to it, don’t worry. MoMA’s put it all on the web so you can explore all the connections yourself. The highlighted names show the artists with over 25 connections, like an early 20^th century LinkedIn or really popular Facebook friends. Who knew that Russian fine-art diva Goncharova was more connected than, say, Malevich or El Lissitsky? I guess inventing Rayism and designing sets for the Ballet Russes paid off in getting her positioned in this MoMA pantheon.

Created by MoMA curators, designers, and pros from the Columbia Business School, the interactive web highlights every artist featured in the massive MoMA show. The infographic allows you to zoom in to see how the buzz, particularly in 1911-1915, brought abstract art into being. No matter which name you click on, you’ll get to view the works, play the music, and watch the dances – a web-based multimedia tour-de-force.

Now dive into one of the best art-websites ever, and get to know the network and likes of the hot, emerging artists who made the art world of 100 years ago into what we know today.

Watch how this show and web project were brought to life with Excel, great minds, and graphic design. And be sure to check out Paul Ingram’s views on the value of networks at the MoMA video site.

Shoe Obsession or War at FIT

Posted on April 6, 2013 by MsSusanB

Eyelash Heel pump by Roger Vivier (Bruno Frisoni) (2012-2013). Courtesy of Roger Vivier/Photo by Stephane Garrigues

Eyelash Heel pump by Roger Vivier (Bruno Frisoni) (2012). Courtesy of Roger Vivier/Photo by Stephane Garrigues

The design gauntlet has been thrown down. The Museum at FIT’s lower-level exhibit, Shoe Obsession, pits establishment high-heel designers against upstart shoe artists in a no-holes-barred visual extravaganza that footwear lovers will savor.

There’s really no winner or loser. It’s all an impossible-to-take-in treasure trove. Take a look at FIT’s Flickr site, which gives you a taste, but doesn’t even tell half the story. There are 150 pairs of shoes on display, all fighting for your attention as to which is the best, highest, most outlandish, to-be-seen-in, and impossible-to-wear shoe creation.

Noritaka Tatehana’s Lady Pointe shoes designed for Lady Gaga (2012)

The show, sponsored by Saks Fifth Avenue, focuses on 21^st century shoe design, seeming to claim that bags are over and that shoes are “it”. If stats tell the story, FIT says that the average American woman today has over 20 pairs of shoes – double the average of the late 1990s.

The glass vitrines present all the artistry beautifully. When we visited, admirers were circling each slowly to view the exquisite, fanciful creations from all angles. The center aisle features selections from several private shoe collections, including a few from McQueen muse Daphne Guiness.

You’ll see over-the-top works by incumbants Vivier, Prada, Blahnik, and Gucci right next to glass houses showcasing the upstarts, as in our photo here: Center front is Mariela’s actual glass slipper, which no one can actually wear. Above it and to the right, are Tea Petrovic’s prototypes inspired by futuristic sculptor Naum Gabo and the soaring architecture of Calatrava. On the left, Janina Alleyne’s menacing Exoskeleton shoe actually has been created by a 3D printer.

Go and make your own choice about what you would take home if you could.

There’s no video to accompany this incredible show (just a book), so enjoy the trailer for the documentary God Save My Shoes, which FIT had running in its 27th Street entrance:

Allen Ginsberg’s Time Machine Walkabout at NYU

Posted on April 4, 2013 by MsSusanB

Myself seen by William Burroughs, Kodak Retina new-bought 2’d hand from Bowery hock-shop…, 1953, printed 1984-97. National Gallery of Art, Gift of Gary S. Davis.  Images © 2012 Allen Ginsberg LLC. All rights reserved.

Walking through the Grey Art Gallery’s show Beat Memories: The Photographs of Allen Ginsberg is pretty much a stroll through the neighborhood circa 1953 – Tompkins Square Park, Avenue B, three-room apartments for $29 per month.

This incredible tribute to all things Beat was initially mounted by the National Gallery, but the best place to see it is NYU’s gallery in the Village, just steps away from where it all happened. Get to Washington Square to see what it was like to be young, broke, ambitious, and at the edge of a generational shift in America.

Allen Ginsberg had just gotten a $13 Kodak camera in a Bowery pawnshop and began taking photos of himself and his friends – Jack Kerouac, William S. Boroughs, and Gregory Corso. No one was famous yet. About thirty years later, Ginsberg found the snapshots, printed and enlarged them, and wrote in the margins his memories of sharing the flat, living on nothing, and breaking the rules.

The photos tell quite a coming-of-age story – the first publication of Howl, Ferlinghetti’s bookstore in San Francisco, emerging Beat sensibility, and life in a flat at 206 East 7^th Street while Kerouac took to the road. The earlier photos were all taken from 1953 to 1963, but later photos of his from the 1980s include Dylan, Larry Rivers, Francesco Clemente, and even Madonna.

As an extra bonus, Grey Art Gallery interns developed a walking tour of Ginsberg’s East Village haunts, so you can actually experience Café Reggio, Café Wha?, and over 25 other spots where it all took place. Download the PDF tour inside the Beat Memories site and walk the walk of literary and cultural rebellion.

Get to this show right now in New York, or catch it in San Francisco’s Contemporary Jewish Museum later this year. If you can’t do either, poke through the online photos with Ginsberg’s commentary at either the Grey or the National Gallery sites (at the latter, you can enlarge the photos to read Ginsberg’s addendums). Here’s a promo from WNET:

FIT Grad Students Give Everyone the Boot

Posted on April 1, 2013 by MsSusanB

Curvy, red-lined leather “it” boot of 1900 by Jack Jacobus Ltd. Austrian fashion, gift of the V&A.

As part of FIT’s program in Fashion and Textiles Studies, the grad students have mounted a gem of a show about fashionable footwear — Boots: The Height of Fashion, running just a few days more.

The museum’s side gallery tells an interesting story about how boots went from practical to glam, and from guy wear to girl fashion, beginning with some thought-provoking high-buttoned “look at me” boots from 1900, following on to the boot-clad flappers, and taking us straight through boot history to the heyday of the Warhol factory.

The students have rummaged through the FIT collection to show us their picks to demonstrate “boots as a second skin” (David Evins, Charles Jourdan, and silk Louboutins), the rebel look, fashion-tribe style, and over-the-top luxury.

Fantasy-meets-luxury suede and shearling creation by Manolo Blanik (1997, UK). Gift of Ruffo.

Among our favorites are the 1922 Ball Brand flapper galoshes and everything from the collection of Warhol superstar Baby Jane Holzer – 1963 Davide Beatle boots, 1969 Guccis, and 1971 embroidered boots from The Chelsea Cobbler.

The students also gave us a behind-the-scenes look with two cases about boot conservation. One case features pairs of boots (baby boots and high-buttoned shoes) with one shoe “conserved” and the other in its deteriorating state. The second case shows how the museum is preserving those famous “second skin” David Evins polyurethane leggings from 1960s, which sadly have broken down due to the atmosphere and light.

Although the following video is not associated with the show, it certainly shows that form-fitting high-style boots did not originate with Mr. Evins. Enjoy:

Second-skin Louboutin satin boots (1994-95 Fall collection)

Easter Parade with Horses at Grand Central

Posted on March 29, 2013 by MsSusanB

GCT security keeping an eye on the red horse

The colors, crowds, finery, and promenade in Grand Central is every bit as celebratory as the famed Easter Parade on Fifth Avenue, except there’s live music and horses. It’s all part of Nick Cave’s monumental performance Heard NY going on each day at 11am and 2pm in Vanderbilt Hall.

Get there early and take your cameras to see The Ailey School students don the two-person horse costumes, created out of raffia, to whoosh and swirl away to the drums and harp. Take a look at the Flickr photos of yesterday’s 11am performance.

Creative Time and MTA Arts for Transit have decided to use both sections of Vanderbilt Hall for simultaneous performances, so you have lots of options to see the 30 magnificent horses close up. Afterward, you’ll see the volunteers grooming the horses, so there’s lots of opportunity to check out the loving detail that Cave has given each of them.

Half of the 30-horse herd

The raffia flies, the dancers whirl, and it’s breathtaking to see the horses come alive before your eyes and cavort about with their distinct personalities. Even if you go to the Easter Parade at St. Patrick’s on Sunday, you’ll still have time to catch their final 2pm performance. If you want to see another example of Nick’s work, check out our post on The Armory Show a few weeks ago. For now, enjoy this wonderful promo:

Celebrity Robot Says Good-Bye to Upper East Side

Posted on March 26, 2013 by MsSusanB

As musician Lois Kendall shows him red roses and green leaves, Elektro tells her the color of each. Source: NYPL

If you love the future, you have to see Elektro, the celebrity robot, who once held court in the Westinghouse pavilion at the 1939 New York’s World’s Fair, before he leaves the city once again. He’s the star attraction in the Museum of the City of New York’s Designing Tomorrow: America’s World’s Fairs of the 1930s exhibition, closing soon.

We couldn’t take photos inside the show, so here’s a publicity picture of Elektro back in 1939. He walked, talked, smoked cigarettes, as you’ll witness in this 1939 YouTube clip. This sensational moto-man used vacuum tubes, a 78 RPM record player, photoelectric cells, and telephone relays to wow the crowds.

But Elektro is only the tip of the Trylon of how fair design and engineering shaped modern American style. The show introduces the industrial design engineers that shaped products that grace MoMA’s design collection and insinuated themselves into everyday life – streamlined appliances, nylon stockings, Herman Miller clocks, Greyhound buses, and superhighways. Check out the MCNY’s excellent Tumblr feed for their visions of the future.

Postcard of the General Motors Futurama, NY 1939 World's Fair. Source: MCNY

Postcard of the General Motors Futurama, NY 1939 World’s Fair, that resembles BPC today. Source: MCNY

Among the show’s highlights are clips showing the GM Futurama, where New Yorkers waited in line for hours to see what the city of 1960 would look like. “Sound chairs” moved them along a conveyor belt where they could witness a vast scale model of modernized America, with superhighways soaring over canyons and cutting through mountains, and urban/suburban cloverleaf interchanges to keep traffic moving.

Afterward, people would exit into a full-scale World of Tomorrow where they would see what the urban intersection of the future would be – filled with pedestrian overpasses, department stores, and unimpeded whizzing traffic. It sure looked a lot like the view of Battery Park City along West Street.

Suggested Exhibit for NY 1939 World's Fair. Watercolor & gouache on board. Source: MCNY

Beautiful watercolor/gouache from MCNY collection: “Suggested Exhibit for NY 1939 World’s Fair.”

Oh! Wallace Harrison, one of the architects of the Trylon and Perisphere actually did the master plan for Battery Park City…and Lincoln Center and the UN Headquarters building and Time-Life on Sixth Avenue!

So, no wonder Elektro feels right right at home in 2013 Manhattan. In 1939, he already could see what it would look like, right from his pavilion!

Take a spin around Elektro’s world, courtesy of the New York Public Library:

I Sat in the Saarinen Chair

Posted on March 23, 2013 by MsSusanB

The 1956 Saarinen Tulip chair at the Met

If you’ve been to the Metropolitan Museum’s Modern Design gallery on the first floor, you’ve seen the iconic Eero Saarinen chair sitting on its platform at the back of the gallery with a “do not sit” sign prominently displayed.

Too bad you aren’t down in Wilmington, North Carolina at the Cameron Art Museum, where a tribute to three famous local artists provides you with an opportunity not only to sit in one, but at a Saarinen table with four of them, all surrounded by classy contemporary art in a setting only an artist can create. It’s a recreation of Claude Howell’s apartment 44, collecting and making art and holding salons for his entire life. Check out the Flickr photos of his fantastic place (yes, it’s a recreation, right down to the views of the Cape Fear River outside!).

The Cameron invites you to sit down to enjoy Claude Howell’s beloved Saarinen set

It’s part of the fantastic tribute “From Gatehouse to Winehouse” that is extended to April 14. Besides Claude’s apartment, the curators have also built the ramshackle botanical garden gatehouse where Minnie Evans sold tickets and created her visionary masterworks from 1948 to 1974. (By the 1970s, her work was displayed at the Whitney.) Take a look. The surrounding gallery walls are filled with projected “visions” and crayon drawings hung on a line. The third studio belongs to mysterious, mystical woman of the 1920s, Elisabeth Chant (and Claude’s art teacher.)

Claude at home in his salon-studio. Source: Cameron Art Museum

Enjoy seeing how Claude lived and worked with his museum-quality dining set, and if you are anywhere near Wilmington, be sure to go sit in the chairs for real. Claude would be glad to have you over!

70s East Village and Catholic School Mash-Up at MoMA PS1

Posted on March 20, 2013 by MsSusanB

Glittery details from Thomas Lanigant-Schmidt’s 1986 collage, The Infant of Prague as a Personification of Liberation Theology. Source: International Collage Center.

As a young gay runaway in the 1960s, Thomas Lanigan-Schmidt landed in New York City, looked at the trash littering the East Village streets where he roamed, and felt a strange attraction to the cellophane wrappers, fabric, and other dumpster treasures he retrieved. This is the jumping off point for the glittery art retrospective at MoMA PS1, Thomas Lanigan-Schmidt: Tender Love Among the Junk.

From his years of Catholic schooling and altar-boy duty, it wasn’t a stretch for Lanigan-Schmidt to use his street stuff to create glimmering duplicates of chalices, patents, and other altar accouterments. Or to work in the occasional high-school or East Village gay-life reference.

Soon, dozens of precious tin-foil creations were filling his walls. Why not go for an entire transformation? He hung diaphanous painted veils, dressed in drag as a “Czarina Tatlina” (an art-world reference to Russian Constructivism), and began to offer tours of his Gilded Summer Palace to friends. Word of this trash-to-fantasy performance spread, and he soon had a group of fans, including downtown theater innovator Charles Ludlam and famed Metropolitan Museum curator Henry Geldzahler.

Installation view. © MoMA PS1. Photo: Matthew Septimus

Get out to PS1 for this trip. The installation photo here gives you an idea of his brilliance. The area is decorated as a chapel with icons, pilgrims, brownstones, and 1950s school posters. The devotional ledges are packed with tennis figures, aerosol-can consumer products (Secret, Wizard), and Perrier bottles. The walls are filled with Smurf and Miss Piggy plates with bugs in between. And there’s a sort-of East Village Gregorian chant playing in the room.

You’ll enter the recreation of his Czarina’s Gilded Summer Palace and Sacristy of the Hamptons (1969), see many gold-foil Rats (yes, there was a time before gentrification on Ave B/C!), and read through his actual Catholic school workbooks. You’ll love the vibe of experiencing this in an old public school building, too.

As soon as you walk in the door, you’ll find a piece of paper with a copy of his 1989 essay “1969 Mother Stonewall and the Golden Rats”, his first-hand recollection of the night that made history. So, take a walk back in time by seeing this important, unforgettable retrospective. In the meantime, enjoy a virtual visit with this former altar-boy/chronicler of the East Village past in his studio today:

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Susan B's advice on what you shouldn't miss in NYC and other museums