Jaume Plensa

Jaume Plensa
Spanish, 1955-
Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Sculpture Garden
Images courtesy of my honeymoon

So, I greatly apologize, as I do not know the title of this piece (I did some work trying to figure it out but am not up for pulling out all the librarian stops right now). There are many other wonderful works by Jaume Plensa that you can peruse and do to some similarity among works, other titles could give you an idea of what this one could be.

This sculpture is part of a sculpture garden along side one of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts new buildings. I'm always excited to catch site of a Plensa. Even though this one is quite small compared to some of the artist's work on a grander scale, you can give it different kind of personal attention than his larger than life works. I saw my first (knowingly) on a trip to the Frederik Meijer Gardens of Grand Rapids. Check theirs out here. I say knowingly because I had already seen the fountain in Chicago's Millennium Park more than once but never took the time to check out who the artist was. See Crown Fountain. I apologize for that sentence being in italics, blogger won't let me fix it.

I have not given Plensa the time and care he deserves, so please do check out his website, hit Google images and find a Plensa to experience in person!

cup and flower

Cup of Water and Rose on a Silver Plate c. 1630
Francisco de Zurbaran (1598-1664)
Oil on canvas, 21,2 x 30,1 cm
National Gallery, London
image: Web Gallery of Art

I'm back! with a still-life. I did a lot of cataloging this week and built up a list of artists to share. Today's is Baroque Spanish painter, Francisco de Zurbaran. Zurbaran was not known for still-lifes and I was not originally intending on sharing one, but when I was looking for a work, I fell for this simple yet beautiful painting.

This same motif is in a few of Zurbaran's other paintings. "Here the objects may be intended to have a symbolic character: the water in the cup perhaps refers to the Virgin's purity and the flower recalls her title of 'Mystic Rose'." (nationalgallery caption). Most of Zurbaran's works were focused on religious themes.

Depth of Image

Collage, 1929
Joan Miro Spanish (1893-1983)
Conté crayon, gouache, ink, flocked paper, newspaper, abrasive cloth, and various papers on flocked paper, 28 5/8 x 42 3/4"
Museum of Modern Art

I am simply blown away by the online exhibition
of a current MoMA exhibition , Joan Miro: Painting and Anti-Painting. First alerted to the show by a beautiful catalog received at work I meant to find a Miro for my blog. I promptly forgot as I am wont to do with the amount of art I see on a daily basis, but a search for a Magritte painting (which will surely come along after not too long) brought me to Miro and here we are (you just love to hear my pathways to selection don't you? :). Miro has been a favorite of mine since I was a child. His colorful, abstract and surrealistic paintings were always a draw for me, one of my favorite museums on my European tour in college was the Fundacio Joan Miro in Barcelona. As I got older I wasn't as sure, but some time spent with my broader art knowledge as well as exposure to a greater selection of Miro's oeuvre (drawings, collages etc.) my love for, appreciation and understanding of Miro grew.

I intended on sharing one of the colorful, rich paintings, but a perusal of the online exhibition encouraged me to share a work that showcases what museums are doing with images online and in turn focus more on the "Anti-Painting" part of the exhibition. Collages are wonderfully dimensional, something that is often difficult to get any grasp of unless you see it in person. The large images and zoom function are fantastic. You can see the ragged edges and wrinkles of the paper. The online exhibition also incorporates works that are not a part of the physical exhibition (a great way to complete a theme, discussion etc. as it is often the case that desired works could not be used for the show for various reasons, this particular work is not in the exhibition).

Another fantastic aspect of the online exhibition is the ability to present a group of works in more than one grouping. MoMA has presented the works as series (by both medium and subject), a chronology, an index, and most interesting of all by size. You can easily scroll through these rows, click on a work of interest, increase its size and read it's "wall label".

I've went on for a bit, haven't said anything about the collage! Check out the online exhibition and have fun! (It definitely works better in the full screen version).

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.