Piet Mondrian's Trees

A while ago I got the chance to go to the Art Institute again, love that place.  I think when I'm there, I'm happy.  Period.  Anyway, I ran across this painting and was reminded how much I love it!  Its a painting called Farm near Duivendrecht, by Piet Mondrian.  I love the amazing colors, the beginning of abstraction to the tree and just the way he captures the tranquility of the setting as a whole.  Found some interesting information on this piece here. 

 I enjoy Mondrian's work and thought I would share some more of his paintings I've seen and enjoyed in the past.  I love looking at the progression of works also, see where the artist started and where he ended.  With Mondrian's work, especially as it relates to trees, this progression is really interesting.

The Red Tree

The Grey Tree

Composition No. 11

And some of his last work, completely abstract with no curing lines at all.  

More to come later....a round up of Mondrian inspired clothes, home goods and more!

Andy Goldsworthy

Some friends reminded me the other day how much I love Andy Goldsworthy (thanks gals!)!  I'm so impressed by his work every time I see it, its beauty, simplicity and organic all at the same time.  I'm also impressed with him as an artist.  After watching his documentary Rivers & Tides (and buying it then watching it over and over!) I feel as though the quiet dedication to his work he displays is amazing.  
One of my favorite pieces he did in the last 10 years was essentially a public installation piece.  On June 21, 2001 he displayed a body of work called Midsummer Snowballs.  This work consisted of 13 1-ton snowballs Goldsworthy created in the winter before.  Each of the snowball concealed pieces inside of them for example one had feathers, another pine cones, medal, barbed wire etc.  In the middle of the night, Goldsworthy unleashed each of these snowballs onto the streets of the London financial district. Throughout the warm day each of the snowballs began to melt, each one was different according to its location and interaction with people who passed by.  What a beautiful way to bring some nature to the streets of London for all to see and experience!  All the snowballs melted within 3-5 days, leaving the enclosed elements behind.
I hope I'm not alone thinking this piece was genius, its certainly one of my favorites.  Enjoy these amazing photos of the process. 

The whole process for 4 of the snowballs, from start to finish.  Amazing, I wish I'd seen these to be sure. 

Edward Hopper's 'Nighthawk'

An interesting article about Edward Hopper's (most famous) piece Nighthawk. 

This piece always captures my attention for a long while whenever I see it.  The cafe is so mysterious as are the patrons.  I always wonder and think about their stories, what brought them there and why this cafe was open so late.  I realize now that I've read this article that this place is fictitious, but I still love it when artwork inspires you to think about the subject, imagine things about the people in the painting and beyond.  

Louise Bourgeois

I shed a tear when I heard that Louise Bourgeois passed away a few weeks ago.  What a loss for the contemporary art world!  
[I realize that I just did a 'ode to Dennis Hopper' a few weeks ago, and I promise this blog won't turn into a bunch of obituaries, but her passing was something I couldn't overlook.] 
I've always admired her work, and encountered lots of her pieces in my visit to museums.  Seems like most museums want to boast having a Bourgeois.   One piece stands out in my memory.  At the Venice Biennale in 2005 at the Arsenale building I simply fell in love with these sculptures (pictured below when they were at the Guggenheim, New York).

The piece (sorry I don't remember the name!) was hung in one of the tallest galleries and it created this play on space and weight that I couldn't get enough of.  I remember standing beneath it in fear thinking that they could fall on me and kill me.  But I still stood there just marveling. 

Charles Ray, Hinoki

So I'm heading off to the Art Institute of Chicago tomorrow with one of my best friends from college who is visiting me!  I'm so excited, especially to go to this museum with someone who was an art major with me back in college. 

So with that on my mind, I thought I'd share thoughts I had on one of the pieces I enjoyed the most featured in the galleries of the new modern wing.
The piece called, Hinoki, by Charles Ray, is carved out of Cyprus wood and occupies an entire gallery in the modern wing, and rightfully so.  It is a gigantic sculpture of a broken tree trunk.  Sounds simple, in fact I'd say I saw a lot of people glance at it then determine they didn't want to look closer and left that gallery.  It's true, at first you think it's just a broken tree trunk.  You might think, as so many people do, why is this art?  But then as you look closer, you see the details, the shapes of the limbs, see how it hollow in the center, then suddenly you realize you're looking at something that's man  made!  I love it when art surprises you like that.  I remember physically stepping back because I was taken aback almost.  Love having that reaction to art, I think Ray would appreciate it too.

Homage to Dennis Hopper

Dennis Hopper died a few days ago.  Until I worked at the Orange County Museum of Art on a exhibition of California art from the 1960s, I wasn't familiar with Hopper's work, outside of the big screen anyway.  But he was a very talented photographer, and it doesn't hurt that some of his subject were among the most famous of artists coming out of the United States at the time. 
Here's a few of my favorite photographs he took, as well as a self-portrait of his which I think captures him brilliantly. 

Ed Rusha (photo by Dennis Hopper)

Christo + New AT&T Commercial

For those of you that were astounded as me to see AT&T wrapping things with bright orange fabric in their latest commercial, you'll be disappointed to know that this wrapping was not done by artists Christo & Jeanne-Claude.  They just, pretty much, stole the idea.  But I can't be too upset, in fact I appreciate this new marketing campaign.  For those who haven't seen the commercial, here it is.

If you love Christo's work like I do you might be pleasantly surprised by the new creative things they wrapped in the commercial!  For example, the Hollywood sign and the St. Louis arch.  Both excellent choices for wrapping I thought.
I had the unexpected fortune of seeing his work The Gates when I was in New York City in 2005.  I say unexpected because we weren't expecting to get to see it.  The installation was to end a week before we were in town, but thankfully for us, it took them about 2 weeks to tear everything down, hooray!  I even got one of the swatches they were giving out!

His work in central park was, a really nice way to 'wrap' the park.  His work is typically more literal, like this (pictured below, my personal favorite) when he wrapped the pont neuf in Paris, but I liked the play on wrapping he came up with for The Gates.

I first learned about Christo's work when watching the documentary film made about his piece Running Fence. A lot of what the documentary shows is the struggle he went through to get permission to build this fence.  It's really fascinating, I've never seen such an uproar over art before, it's pretty incredible. (If you want to watch part of it, check it out here).

This fence ran the length of 24.5 miles, across the property of 59 ranchers in Sonoma and Marin counties in northern California.  Talk about ahead of his time, he created this piece in 1976.  I appreciate and really love his vision.  And of course Jeanne-Claude, his perfect help-meet and her brilliantly bright red hair.

Richard Serra - My Favorite, Part 2

So, as established before, I love Richard Serra.
Recently (in 2007) he had a 40 year retrospective of his work at MoMA which pretty impressive for someone to have while they're alive. MoMA produced a few videos to accompany this exhibition called Serra Sculpture: Forty Years.   This one is my favorite, it's him talking about the sculpture designed specifically for a space.  It really is fantastic.  It gives you a feeling for just how much work and innovation is put into his pieces, but also how well thought out things are.  One of the things I dislike most is when people think a piece of art isn't good becaues it looks simple or easy.  We can often fall into this with Serra's work because of its simplicity, but this video proves it is anything but. 
 

Here's Richard Serra in front of one of the same type of sculptures, if I had to guess I'd say it was at the Bilbao Guggenheim. For the opening of that museum he was commissioned to create sculptures to fill their largest gallery.

Here is an aerial view of the same gallery.  Beautiful.

Tara Donovan

[Tara Donovan, Untitled, made from paper plates]

The first time I experienced Tara Donovan's work, my jaw literally dropped.  You've probably inferred by now that I enjoy contemporary artwork that is surprising, affecting and unusual or new and innovative.  Donovan's work goes fits right into all those categories, and I would add a description of whimsical as well.  Donovan's work is usually made up of mundane, everyday objects like scotch tape, finish wire, styrofoam cups and drinking straws to name a few.  She transforms these objects (and I don't use the word transform lightly, trust me) into amazing sculptures and installations.
Its fun to interact with her artwork, especially those sculptures that you can walk under or inside.  Like this one which I've seen covering an entire gallery ceiling at Ace, as well as the entrance ceiling to the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego.

I love her process which usually involves the help of a large amount of people working together.  This one is made out of fishing wire, it always baffles me as to how it looks so blue.  I suppose that fishing wire has the tiniest tint of blue and when multiplied by thousands, will look very much that color?

 Also one of my favorites is this (close up image) of a sculpture made of scotch tape.  Knowing how frequently I get frustrated just dealing with small pieces of tape, I can appreciate the amount of work and patience this must have taken.  Love her work!

Richard Serra - My Favorite, Part 1

I love Richard Serra's artwork.  I think it's a tie between him and Andy Goldsworthy for the title of 'my favorite contemporary artist', but I tend to shy away from statements like that in fear of contradicting myself at some point.  
When I worked at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, we were in the process of opening a new building.  Quite a process, but one of the upsides was that we commissioned Richard Serra to create and install a piece in the outside space of that new building.  As a result of him coming to install this piece I had a chance to watch how he works to install his work!  A truly amazing and meticulous experience, here's a shot of him collaborating with his chief engineer.

But let me back up, Richard Serra is known primarily for his works which challenge gravity and become very physical to the viewer.  Their breathtaking size and assumed weight of the pieces, for me have been some of the most fascinating and physically affecting works of art I've seen. 
The first time I saw a Serra piece in person was at the Dia:Beacon museum in upstate New York.  One of his lesser-known works, perhaps, was my first encounter.  Union of the Torus and the Sphere, pictured below.

This sculpture which is two long and narrow pieces of steel, mirrored, then connected on either end, was shoved into a skinny hallway of a gallery.  Being my first time at this museum, I didn't know of another way around the museum so I scooted by it.  Its amazing, the genius of putting that sculpture in that small space!  (I'm not certain, but I have a feeling he created it specifically for that room).  At first I attempted to get by on the right side, but as you can see, it's pretty tight.  At one point I felt like the sculpture might fall over on me. I then went back and got by easily on the left.  But what an experience, as you can probably tell, I'm hyper fascinated with art that gets in your face and invades your space! 
More later, but one last gem.  At that same museum, I saw Serra's Torqued Ellipses for the first time.  There are 3 right next to each other in a giant gallery space.  As viewers we're invited to explore inside the ellipses which are gigantic, very tall plates of manipulated steel, really a feat of engineering. The fact that these sculptures defy gravity doesn't seem to keep people out from them, but for me there was definitely hesitation.  Do I want to risk it, to enter this sculpture?  I thought about it and I'm sure other people do as well.  The Art:21 website says this about his torqued ellipses: "...bent and curved, leaning in and out, carve very private spaces from the necessarily large public sites in which they have been erected."  That to me is another way the pieces affect you.  As I was exploring, I felt almost as though being inside the piece, I was alone, it was private, a place where I could relax, be myself.  Because of the sheer volume of the work you really do feel isolated from the outside when you're within them.  Unfortunately you can't take photographs, but I bought this postcard as a memento of my first experience with Serra's work, and a hope of more to come!

Anish Kapoor

Anish Kapoor is an artist that I've only in the last few years become familiar with.  He is known mostly for his sculptures which engage viewers through their size and simplicity.  The sculptures often have an element of mystery and the viewer is able to explore the sculpture by walking in and around it.  His use of space and its interaction with the viewer is extremely unique and I think you'd be hard pressed to find an artist who allows as much interaction with their work as he does. 
The other thing about his work is that he engages viewers through the materials he uses.  I know for me, when things are shiny or have a mystery to their surface, I really want to reach out and touch them.  And this is how he creates another level of fascination in his work.  Take this piece for example in the permanent collection of the Tate Modern called Ishi's Light.  

How badly do you want to walk in ther and touch that shiny dark surface!  I can only imagine what it feels like to stand within that sculpture.One of his pieces I feel privileged to see frequently is is Cloud Gate.

Most people in Chicago know this sculpture only as 'the bean,' but it is in fact a sculpture designed and created by Anish Kapoor.  He said about this sculpture "What I wanted to do in Millennium Park is make something that would engage the Chicago skyline ... so that one will see the clouds kind of floating in, with those very tall buildings reflected in the work. And then, since it is in the form of a gate, the participant, the viewer, will be able to enter into this very deep chamber that does, in a way, the same thing to one's reflection as the exterior of the piece is doing to the reflection of the city around."  Pretty awesome.

Rachel Whiteread

Rachel Whiteread is one of the artists I learned about in my very first art history class.  I can still remember how I felt when I first saw an image of her piece, a cast of the interior of a row home in London's East End, called Home.

This piece is so fascinating to me, yet so sad at the same time.  It feels almost forlorn is the best word I can think to describe it.  Whiteread is now known for her castings in resin and plaster of familiar objects and the spaces they surround.  By showing us what the empty space looks like as an actual form, it changes our perspective.  It also has an ephemeral quality to because by looking at it, you understand that the place it was cast from had to be destroyed in order for it to be made (at least that's the assumption I always made, I could be wrong).

The first piece of hers I saw in person was this cast of stairs at the Venice Biennale in 2007. Seeing this sculpture in person is highly disorienting.  My eyes were drawn the logical part first, the cast of the stairs going upwards, then to the inverted stairs.  It actually took me a while to realize that the stairs that looked to me like they were the 'right' way, were in fact the part of the sculpture that had been inverted!  Its the part that looks upside down that truly is the cast of the stairway.  Amazing, I really loved seeing this piece. 

She's done casts of stairs before, one sculpture is in the collection of the Tate Modern.  About these stair sculptures she says "When I was first thinking about making [it] I didn’t necessarily want to illustrate it as a staircase ... I wanted to try to do something a bit less literal. I wanted to change the way one might think about how you walk around or through something ... when we first put the staircase work up in the studio ... I was struck by the sense of physical disorientation it gave me."
(Quoted in Transient Spaces, pp.50-1).  Very cool, I always love hearing what artists have to say about their own work.

What prompted this post is that I read that the Museum of Modern Art recently re-installed her piece Water Tower on their roof.  

Water Tower is described by MoMA as "a resin cast of the interior of a once-functioning cedar water tower, chosen specifically for the texture this type of wood would impart to the surface."  I love that its cast in resin instead of cement or another opaque material.  Since it is slightly translucent it not only references the water that these structures usually hold, but tranfers qualities of the buildings and sky around it to the viewers.  Excellent piece, I hope to see it one day soon.