Tis a New Year

Hello!! It has been close to a year since I was last active on this blog. Many have said they missed it and I realized that I missed too. I still come across new and and old loves of art every day, so I am going to do my best to regularly share it. I may change the blog format soon, possibly switch to wordpress, but will keep you posted on any changes. In the meantime, I do hope you will come back to reading it and freely comment. Thanks for your support!!!

Today, I share an amazing interactive installation by Yayoi Kusama.

Obliteration Room

I am only posting an image of the first stage of the installation, do click on the link above to see the transformation, it's wonderful. (Image on the right from the Colossal Art & Design blog) The installation, is part of Kusama’s Look Now, See Forever exhibition currently at the Gallery of Modern Art in Brisbane, Australia.

I was able to wander through a Kusama installation at the Mattress Factory in Pittsburgh, a few months back. It was quite the experience and I have to say, I quite enjoyed it, enough to go commercial and buy a magnet. (Image to the right is Infinity Dots Mirrored Room, 1996, long term loan to Mattress Factory from their website)

Enchanting tendrils

Roxy Paine (b.1966)
Maelstrom
stainless steel
weighing over seven tons and measuring 130 feet long by 45 feet wide.
Roxy Paine on the Roof: Maelstrom
The Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Roof Garden
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
April 28 - October 25, 2009
Image: http://www.jamescohan.com/artists/roxy-paine/ Photo: Sheila Griffin


These are the types of things that make me miss NYC with a passion. Heading up to to the Met's roof for art. This looks to be one of the best they've had. If you can get to nyc by November 29 do it and go see it and tell me all about it! Please check out more of Paine's work here:
http://www.jamescohan.com/artists/roxy-paine/#

Paine's tree sculptures are incredible. Maelstrom brings more into the tree. It is one of Paine's "Dendroids based on systems such as vascular networks, tree roots, industrial piping, and fungal mycelia" (http://www.metmuseum.org/special/se_event.asp?OccurrenceId={6267CA47-491B-4776-A468-0673F8362B0F}) It takes hardens the natural tendril quality of the tree in steel with the backdrop of Central Park. Digital images surely don't do it any kind of remote justice, as I imagine the experience of wandering through the tendrils and hollows of the negative space which the branches create. I'm not sure how Paine's work has escaped my knowledge for this long.

For a great short article about this work, I recommend checking out Roxy on the Roof by Max Weintraub via the art:20 blog.

sun-sneezers

Sun-sneezers blow light bubbles, 2007-08
Ranjani Shettar (Indian, 1977-)
Installation
Stainless steel, muslin cloth, tamaraind kernel powder paste and lacquer
Images: artnet.com

I recently saw an exhibition of Ranjani Shettar's work at SFMoMA. Installations are a hard thing to share via the web but the pamphlet from the exhibition is sitting here next to me with this wonderful work on the cover, I wanted to share it.

"Shettar's sinous, organic structures suggest natural elements while utilizing both man-made and natural materials, as well as incorporating pre-industrial workmanship with contemporary technique. Though her sculptures initially appear delicate and fragile, upon closer examination, one realizes that each petal or wing like appendage is made of wrought iron or solidly cast in some kind of resin. In this way, Shettar's works testify to ideas of history, process, time, and evolution." (Marisa Naksone. http://www.examiner.com/x-533-SF-Art-Examiner~y2009m3d23-New-Work-Ranjani-Shettar-at-SFMOMA)

Light and Space

Light and Space III, 2008
Robert Irwin (1928-)
Installation, Indianapolis Museum of Art
fluorescent lights

Left image from blog: Modern Art Notes
All other images by me, ALH.

A recent visit to Indianapolis for a conference provided me with a visit to the Indianapolis Museum of Art. This installation by Robert Irwin is the first permanent commission by the artist. I am always fascinated by light in art but do not always like the structure and composition of installations. The incorporation of Irwin's tubes of light into the functional escalator a great sight to see. My own photographs show more of an interest in varying the frames of what I am viewing, breaking up the overall installation view. The installation is 3 stories. Unfortunately I did not have the opportunity to travel the escalators so the full depth of the work (10 ft. or so) I did not experience. Looking at the it from the atrium space it can appear flat. Modern Art Notes.

I am intrigued by the manipulation of light and space, only recently learning about Irwin, though James Turrell is one of my favorite artists.

Resin Library

Church Library II, c. 2000
Stella Waitzkin
resin and mixed media

A very exciting artist discovery for me. This particular piece is one of her library installations. Each book on the shelf is an individually cast polyester resin sculpture. Alison Weld refers to each book as a "beautifully realized and complete painting" (see other library installations). Each of Waitzkin's books/paintings when brought together create an mulitfaceted yet uniquely complete work of art. The individual books are gorgeous, rich in texture and color and with a raw, tortured quality, some with a wonderful battered appearance (like a book that has been read, torn pages, mottled covers...). Some of the books have molded faces into them, adding to their sculptural quality and giving them an added life.

The idea of creating sculptural books and installing libraries may initially seem whimsical but Waitzkin's work is far from it. The damaged, raw quality and the sculpture figures emerging into and out of the pages and covers can be haunting. Her one bedroom apartment in New York was filled with books, her resin sculptures. The image of such a room is fascinating to me, books created to provide a different form of enlightenment and edification.

Waitzkin's work is part of the Artist-Environment Builders Collection at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center. "Artist-environment builders transform their homes, yards, or other aspects of their personal surroundings into multifaceted works of art that, in vernacular ways, embody and express the locale—time, era, place—in which each of them lived and worked." Stella Waitzkin.

Light Tunnel

Light Tunnel
The Smith Group - Architect
Mills/James Productions
Victor Alexeef - Composer
Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport


Pedestrian tunnel connecting concourses at the DTW airport. I can't find much written about the tunnel, garnering a little bit of information from a blog about light (Jim on Light) which is might be a fascinating topic for a blog as is. Most people refer to this as the "psychedelic tunnel". The music is cheesy but fits the space well. From the unlimited number of blog posts I've found about the tunnel most people think it's great. I have to admit by thinking it was pretty cool on my first trip through it, especially because it is a particularly long tunnel and makes the trip through a bit more interesting. I am willing to bet though if you are not feeling awesome (which surely is the case for many before or after a plane flight) this installation may not be a welcome bit of art.

The blue image to the right is a close up of the wall if I remember correctly from my trips through the tunnel. An even greater set of photos can be found here
Second Image: Thierry Guertin

The circular end of the tunnel never ceases to make me feel as if I might be beamed up at any second. After spending some time looking at photos, I think the tunnel has provided some people with awesome potential photography. Some of the shots are just fantastic.

1st and 3rd photo from:
Great set of photos on flickr

A google search for "detroit aiport light tunnel" will come up with an unending array of videos and photos.

Contemporary Sculpture

Piggy Back (A Caballit0) 1997
Juan Munoz (1953-2001)
Speed Art Museum Louisville, KY

I have a lot of thoughts on themes which I've been avoiding but I think I may follow one this week (we'll see what Tuesday holds...). Contemporary Sculpture will be my offering. I will try to share a range of work that has been created since 1980 and it may or may not cross over into installation (the history of sculpture class I took in college was predominantly installation - which I did find annoying at the time, my knowledge of sculpture history is not so good!)

Juan Munoz is one of my favorite contemporary sculptors (though he unfortunately passed away too soon in 2001). One of the special artists that always causes me an excited breath when I see one of his works in a museum visit. Happily, we have one of his sculptures at TMA, and I discovered a new one this past Friday at the Speed Art Museum in Louisville, KY (which I highly recommend taking a visit too, both the city and the museum)

The experience of a Munoz sculpture or installation can be a little unnerving at first. His figures have incomplete faces, yet are not expressionless. One feels as if they have interrupted the space of the figures. While near life-size, their stature appears small due to the their often hunched or slumped physicalness. It often appears as if their bodies are not complete or that they cannot completely fill the space of the materiality of their clothing. The figures invoke a quietude that in a way requests respect from the spectator. Munoz deliberately stops short of fully enhanced realism in his sculptures with the intention of allowing them a greater and fuller life in their abstracted openness. This also adds to the sense of isolation the figures invoke. “The more realistic sculptures are meant to be," Muñoz has said, "the less interior life they have." (Speed descrip.) These figures have often taken position amongst architectural spaces in site specific installations created by Munoz. Unfortunately, I've never see one in person, but fell for Munoz through an exhibition catalog of one of these installations (A Place Called Abroad) at the Dia Art Foundation which I bought having never seen the show years ago.