Black and White Geometry

Simone Lucas (German, 1973-)
"Not Titled Yet", 2009
Oil on canvas
70.87 x 70.87 in.
image: Jack Tilton Gallery http://www.jacktiltongallery.com/more_artwork/lucas_more/2nd./Lucas.NotTitledYet.Email.Cap.gif

Something about this artist's paintings intrigues me. Their simplicity, geometry and monochrome palette with just a touch of color. The color is usually defined within the geometry and in this painting in particular the women paint that geometry, the color coming from their brushes.

"Their idea is as simple as it is ingenious, and involves infiltrating black-and-white images taken from 19th- and early-20th-century photographs with colorful designs suggestive of the pictorial avant-garde of the same historical period, colorful spheres, checks and other geometrical designs." (Walter Robinson, Weekend Update http://www.artnet.com/magazineus/reviews/robinson/weekend-update10-16-09.asp)

More by Simone Lucas

Lower Level

John Huftalen (American, New Yorker, 1948-)
Lower Level
Metropolitan Museum

Image: http://www.jlhphotographics.com/coppermin/displayimage.php?album=19&pos=7

Hi Dad! It had to happen, here is a wonderful work by my father. I do hope it is okay. I believe it was taken with his Diana camera which he began to experiment with in the last few years (is that right?). There isn't much control with the camera (simple, plastic camera, prone to light leaks) so the shot relies so much on the intuition and eye of the photographer. I had a little trouble choosing between a few from dad's urban photos, oddly enough it came down to a scene of a Manhattan crowd and this image empty of people.

What is interesting to me is that while there are no figures in the image there it still doesn't seem isolated. As I gaze I keep expecting someone to walk into the shot, or one of the trees to turn into a figure. As quiet and still as the image appears the juxtaposition of the sharpness of the center of the image and the blur around the edges creates a movement (also in the shadows of the branches on the building).

As the title shows, this is a small portion of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, a megolith of a building full of treasures and beauty, yet it is awesome to see how simple, pure and beautiful this little corner of it's outside world can be through the eyes of an artist. Yet, this could be any corner in any city and that brings an additional wonder. Thanks Dad, for your passion and your eye. Happy Birthday to you again!

Check out more of John Huftalen's work at http://www.jlhphotographics.com/

Central Park abstraction

Sir Eduardo Paolozzi, (British, 1924-2005)
Calcium Light Night: Central Park in the Dark some 40 Years Ago, 1974
Image: http://www.dundee.ac.uk/museum/sac/intro.htm
Image copyright estate of Eduardo Paolozzi, all rights reserved, DACS
University of Dundee


I was first introduced to Eduardo Paolozzi at TMA, through one of their current shows: Paolozzi: Pop Art Icon. It has taken me awhile to get interested in the images, but with some searching I found an intriguing one. I admit that the title helps with the intrigue. This is a print, though I am unsure of the process since I couldn't find it referenced anywhere. It is possibly a screenprint as many of his other works are.

The Americans

Indianapolis
Robert Frank (1924-) b. Zurich
from "The Americans" (check out more about the exhibition here.
image: artnet.com

On my recent trip to San Francisco I was finally able to visit SFMOMA (San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. They had a wonderful special exhibition, Looking In: Robert Frank's "The Americans". I'm well familiar with Frank's work as well as with "The Americans" (it was our most commonly stolen book at one of my art libraries) yet it was awesome to see all of the photographs from the book organized in sequence in accordance with the book throughout the galleries. I also didn't know much about the creation of the book other than Robert Frank takes a camera around the country. Frank conducted his travel and art on a Guggenheim Fellowship. The exhibition contained an incredible amount of archival and ephemeral material beyond his photographs, from his letter of application for the fellowship (with the edits of his friend, photography, Walker Evans) to letters about getting arrested on his way through Arkansas for ridiculous reasons, to the proofs of what were to become one of the most well-known photography books of our time. Part of Frank's intent with his travels was to see America through the eyes of someone getting to know it, the varied world that America is, from consumerism and materialism, to loneliness and displacement.

Frank's book is known not only for the revelation of an America not everyone could see both sad and beautiful, but also for the design and construction of the book. Each photograph was tightly bound to the one before and after as well as engaged in a thematic discourse throughout. Jack Kerouac wrote the introduction. This exhibition was organized on the 50th anniversary of the books publication in America. Frank initially had difficulty finding a publisher for his book in the US due to the nature of the photographs, they were not too keen on his portrayal of America.

A Flickr pool of photographs in the style of "The Americans"

Poet's Fair

Poet's Fair ca.1953/54
Jules Aarons (1921-2008)
Image: linternaute.com

I discovered Jules Aarons when visiting the DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park in Lincoln, MA, 6 years ago. His work struck me in such a way that I brought a catalog of his show of photographs that day. I came home last night, headed over to my shelf of art books, and pulled this one off.

A physicist and engineer by trade Aarons also excelled at the art of photography. With his background in science he found the technical aspects of photography interesting, mastering them on his own. Luckily for us, he also studied the history and art of photography. Unfortunately his work is not known far beyond his home of Boston, but his rich, sympathetic and earnest photographs hold their own alongside known greats such as Henri-Cartier Bresson... Aarons spent much of his time photographing the neighborhoods of the West End and North End in Boston as well as documenting his travels around the world. A great street photographer catches moments, snapshots of life, they see the unique wonder in what many allow to pass them by. This wonderful parallel portrait, Poet's Fair, taken while on a Fulbright to Paris embodies this.


Jules Aarons Collection at the Boston Public Library.

Illusion

Bridget Riley (b.1931)
Hesitate, 1964
Oil on canvas
support: 1067 x 1124 mm frame: 1155 x 1100 x 54 mm
Tate Collection

When one mentions Op Art, Bridget Riley's paintings are the most famous example. I spent a lot of time with abstract art during a museum visit last week, none of which was by Bridget Riley, but I thought I would overflow into this week with the work of women. The Albright Knox Art Gallery owns at least one Riley, and this was my first experience with her work. As a child I loved it because of how it played with my eyes. I would move back and forth, closer, farther away from the painting to see how it changed.

Op Art refers to the optical effects that the work has on the viewer. The experience becomes dimensional and dominates the viewer's experience. Op Art and Riley's work had a very significant affect on commercial ventures such as fashion and design.

Riley's works don't get their due justice in a digital environment, despite their optical quality. Her paintings are often very large, and this has a very specific effect on the viewer who is in turn encompassed by the illusion and visuality in the work. The "fine art" aspect of Riley's work has been debated as her work fits more comfortably with decoration and design than fine art. An interesting article briefly tackles the distinction and Riley's work -
"Read between the lines: Are Bridget Riley’s paintings really fine art?" by Will Self.

Image of artist

Frida Kahlo, 1931
Imogen Cunningham

Yay! A work of art by a woman, with a woman artist as its subject. Double women artist day. Imogen Cunningham was a glorious artist. Her photography is wonderful. Spend some time with her Published works.

Cunningham output consisted mostly of portraits, nudes and flowers. She did many self-portraits (which I adore - see the one to the left), one of her first self-portraits being a nude self-portrait from 1906. Cunningham found her way to the creative side of photography through studying chemistry in college where she wrote her thesis on the chemical process of photography. (http://www.cs.washington.edu/building/art/ImogenCunningham/) She became one of the first professional woman photographers, opening her own studio in 1910. Cunningham worked as a photographer her entire life, dying at the age of 93, and as a result the joy of discovering new images if her work is new to you can last for a time.

Celebrity Portrait

Mikhail Baryshnikov and Rob Besserer, Cumberland Island, Georgia, 1990
Annie Leibovitz
chromogenic print, photograph
http://www.corcoran.org/leibovitz/index.htm

In the process of cataloging a new volume on Annie Leibovitz I was dismayed to discover that this was the first book to be placed under Leibovitz's cutter number (just in case you wanted to learn a little about where those pesky numbers on library books come from :). Since this is the first significant volume to go into our collection dedicated to Leibovitz (and it's a rather short volume too) I wanted to give today's Art Dose to Leibovitz.

Leibovitz is well-known for her unique celebrity portraits as well as her documentary photography. This photo of Baryshnikov is one of the over a hundred that are part of the internationally travelling exhibition, Annie Leibovitz: A Photographer's Life, 1990-2005, organized by the Brooklyn Museum and currently at the National Portrait Gallery in London.

Close

Philip Glass, 1969
(part of his first series of B&W portraits)
Chuck Close

In keeping with my photo-realist theme, one cannot leave out the work of Chuck Close. I grew up seeing a Chuck Close painting every time I visited the Albright Knox Art Gallery and was always fascinated by the stature and detail in the painting. Close's portraits are of family and friends (many well known artists). Chuck Close is good friends with Philip Glass and produced many portraits of Glass over the years, most from the same photograph of a young Glass with tousled hair.

The image here gives you a better understanding of the commanding size of most of Close's portraits (though Close is 6' 3"). Using the a grid in which to translate a small polaroid to a large-scale painting, Close later on begins to bring the grid out into the forefront, treating each square on its own (with swirls, patterns etc.) but still pulling together a final representational image (his technical abilities were severely debiliated after a sudden blood clot left him partially paralyzed and confined to a wheelchair in 1988 and he brought himself back as a painter and continued his portraits on the same grand scale). The grid makes one think of the pixelation that is so common in technology today, yet Close remains true to his form and is well-known as a techna-fobe.

Double Take

A quickie for today. From the online exhibition Double Takes and the website Square America: A Gallery of Vintage Snapshots & Vernacular Photography. This is a great fun site to play around in. Enjoy!


I actually have a great double take shot, that I just thought of. Not vintage yet seeing as it was taken in 2003 I think, but it's black and white so well on its way! I'll post it tonight when I get home.

Kirchner

Peasant Woman with Boy at Table (Bäuerin mit Knaben am Tisch). (1917).
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. (German, 1880-1938)
Woodcut, composition: 19 11/16 x 15 11/16" (50 x 39.8 cm); sheet: 22 7/16 x 17 1/2" (57 x 44.5 cm). Publisher: unpublished. Printer: the artist, Davos-Frauenkirch, Switzerland. Edition: 11 known impressions. Gift of Grace Borgenicht. © by Ingeborg & Dr. Wolfgang Henze-Ketterer, Wichtrach/Bern
Museum of Modern Art

Current exhibition at MoMA is Kirchner and the Berlin Street. This work isn't related to the show, but definitely check the show out if you are in nyc and if not, check out the online exhibition. While online exhibitions are not as good as the real thing, the growth of them is an awesome way to get access more easily. Especially with thematic shows, being able to just sit and work through an exhibition with text is a great learning tool. Of course I was tipped off to this via a great catalog which I spent a little too much time with this afternoon. Now why did I choose this woodcut for today? If you haven't read or heard I am currently obsessed with prints and these dramatic black and white woodcuts blow me completely away (we're starting woodcuts next week and goodness knows what I'll do with the technique, if it is remotely showable, I'll share it).

There seems to be a problem with MoMA's website so I have no additional link to the image right now, but I'll include it when I can.

Document

The Damm Family, 1987
Crissy, six; Jesse, four; their mother, Linda, 27, a former nursing-home aide; and their stepfather, Dean, 33, an ex-trucker.
Mary Ellen Mark

I went to an artist talk last night by Mary Ellen Mark.
The talk coincided with an exhibition of her Twins Series. Mark went through the images she has created over the last 40 years and they are remarkable. Mark approaches all of her work as an artist, the capturing of reality being her main goal in her photography. Over her career she has been able to both shoot for herself as well as create searing and memorable stories through her documentary photography. A regular contributor to Life Magazine and others, this picture is from a story about "A Week in the Life of a Homeless Family"
I highly recommend reading it. When this image was taken, the Damm family was living in their car. Mark spends all of her time with her subjects when she works, getting to know them, and she follows many of them over the years. Often times helping to support them later on in life. (The young boy ended up needing a lawyer when he got himself into trouble years later).

It was very interesting to hear Mark's take on the status of magazines and photography today. She did a lot of photojournalism for magazines over the years but finds that more recently they have no interest in honest, realistic portrayals of life. They prefer what she refers to as "illustration", in essence, mock-ups of reality. They want created images (what she would consider distorted) in order to tell the story they want to tell instead of the reality that is looking them in the face. It's interesting also to hear her sort of imply that this is the fault of digital photography in a way (she surely blames society's obsession with celebrity too but...). She has no interest in digital herself.

Anyway I could go on. Check out Mark's website for more images, she has a love for the circus around the world, shooting circuses in India, Mexico, NYC and Vietnam. She also has a book coming out soon with her film photography. Another way of making a living, she spent time on the sets of major films, shooting actors and directors off camera. A quick survey of this work shows a wonderful entry into more than the film. Apparently it is much more difficult to do this as movie have gotten more complicated and glitzy and access has become limited. Her website has a section on celebrities, with portraits from Luis Bunuel to Donald Sutherland. Her first film was a Satyricon, by Fellini.

The Lady Cameron

Julia Jackson
1864/65
Julia Margaret Cameron (1815-1879)

The beauty of early photography. Julia Margaret Cameron did not pick up a camera until the age of 48 when she received one as a gift. Cameron captured the beauty of her models, exposing emotion, substance, individuality and lyricism. Her portraits are painterly, truly exposing photography as a fine art beyond the simple realism many saw in it. She drew her models from her high Victorian society circle, also using them as props in the creation of scenes from her well read background of literature and poetry.

Her photography was not universally received, what many see now as a soft beauty in its aesthetic, was regarded by critics as week, lack of sharpness as amateur. Julia is a portrait of one of Cameron's favorite subject's, her niece, Julia Jackson (who was the mother of Virgina Woolf which I just discovered). I think that Cameron achieved her aspirations.

In Cameron's words:
"My aspirations are to ennoble Photography and to secure for it the character and uses of High Art by combining the real and Ideal and sacrificing nothing of the Truth by all possible devotion to Poetry and beauty." (http://www.getty.edu/art/gettyguide/artMakerDetails?maker=2026)