modern art

i love this print:

Snow Hill

This past weekend I visited the Brandywine River Museum in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania. Where? I have no idea where that is. Especially since the Tom Tom had to find us a minimum of three alternative routes before we were able to arrive at the front door and not at someone's locked gate deep in the woods.

But we made it. And there, I was formally introduced to the paintings of Andrew Wyeth, and in particular, my new favorite painting, Snow Hill:

Wyeth painted this picture to mark his seventieth birthday -- each ribbon representing a decade -- and it is absolutely stunning in person. The setting is a hill overlooking Kuerner Farm, which was a major source of inspiration for Wyeth thoughout his painting career. The figures are his models from his earlier works. They dance around a maypole during Christmas time, perhaps celebrating in anticipation of Wyeth's death (Wyeth lived to be 91 years old however).

It's a sureal scene. And just beautiful.

Sand painting art

Sand-painting artist, Kseniya Simonova, won the 2009 Ukraine's Got Talent Competition. This performance, depicting Germany's invasion of the Ukraine during WWII, is unbelievably amazing:



I teared up a little. Not sure if it was the nostalgic music, or the sight of the entire audience starting to full on cry, or the thought of my own meager talents in comparison -- my uncanny ability of 1) making at least two wrong turns every time I go somewhere new, and 2) always arriving at the airport three hours early.

Also, how did this woman know that if she poured sand over a giant light box she would be really good at drawing pictures on it? Did she experiment with different materials? Rice on a table? Beans in a pool of water? I mean, how do you discover you have such a talent? And once she figured out the sand on a light box combination, she must have had to choreograph her painting to the music. The entire thing just blows my mind. Respect.

(via kottke)

Book catch-up

I am sort of behind in my book postings. You're thinking: bitch, pleeease.
No, really.

Gary Panter
by Robert Storr et al

These art books were a Christmas present from my brother. More precisely, he gave me an amazon gift certificate, and I used it to expand my future amazing collection of illustration, art, and children's books. Gary Panter seems to be kind of a big deal in graphic art and design circles, and he's won awards for his set design of Pee-Wee's Playhouse. I thought that this two-volume collection of his works would be a formidable addition to my collection.

The books are filled with pages such as this:


Aquarium from garypanter.com

My plan of attack at this point is to allow the tomes to hang out on the bookshelf for a bit, maybe break them out when we have guests over and those said guests want to feel like they're on LSD. Really though, these books should be kept away from women and children.

3 out of 5

Annie Leibovitz at Work
by Annie Leibovitz

Annie Leibovitz muses about her career in this book, which is also peppered with some of her famous portraits. I almost wished that there was less musing and more photography, although one of my favorite parts of the book was her discussion of her session with the Queen of England, as I vaguely remember some controversy and gossip surrounding it.



4 out of 5

In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto
by Michael Pollan

Maybe you remember my obsession with Omnivore's Dilemma. Yes, I still harbor deeply intense feelings and thoughts about grass-fed cows and the role that corn plays in our society. This is Michael Pollan's follow-up. The message this time is: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." Really the take-away is that you should not be eating anything that your great-grandmother would not have eaten. You know, Twinkies. And Cheez-It crackers. Items that are masqueraded as "food" at the grocery store because technically you can digest them, but that have little nutritional value, give you cancer and diabetes, and have ingredients that you cannot pronounce.

The first two-thirds of the book are very scientific -- nutrients this and nutrients that. And as I am not even positive that I ever passed my high school chemistry class, most of that information went over my head. The last third of the book talks about common sense healthy eating habits, which unfortunately get pushed aside in favor of Lean Cuisines and 100-calorie packs of Pringles during tax busy seasons. Ideally you should be taking more time to prepare fresh foods and more time eating them. Fortunately for me, I have time to go the farmer's market every day to whip up a delicious and wholesome lunch and dinner. Oh wait, no I don't. To make matters worse, I don't think my great-grandmother had much of anything to eat in Soviet Russia. So basically this book does not even apply to me.

3 out of 5

Departure checklist

1. Receive a bag full of presents from coworkers, including a card with a wad of cash paper-clipped inside. Check.

2. Drink one last Butler's hot chocolate, although the magic is slightly gone because it's just too warm outside. Check.

3. Go to the National Gallery for the third (fourth?) time to finally see Lady Writing a Letter with Her Maid because she is back from Tokyo. Just in time. Check.

4. Call Mama and cry. Check.

5. Call Mama again to tell her about the wad of cash. Check.

6. Set up a flickr album with the "b-sides" Ireland photos, may of which, after some clean up, turned out splendidly. Check.

7. Go through an apartment "walk through" where soup spoons and love seats and toasters are all counted meticulously. Check.

8. Go to one last museum. Drink one last pint of beer. Walk past Grafton Street one last time. Check.

9. Post a final POD from Ireland.

Winter wonderland

In the Netherlands, I fell in love with Dutch painter Hendrick Avercamp's winter landscape paintings. This particular one I saw at the Mauritshuis in The Hague and it made me want to jump right into the scene with a mug of steaming hot chocolate and the Fleet Foxes' "White Winter Hymnal" playing in my ear.



Avercamp's paintings are anecdotal and humorous, with every figure performing a different activity -- washing clothes, playing hockey, slipping on the ice and having a bare butt exposed.

Coffee napkins

I loved this fun coffee story told through the power of coffee stains on napkins by Christoph Niemann for the NYT.



Simple and brilliant.

Using my blog to catalog Vermeers, because I am perfectly comfortable with my nerdiness

Vermeers already viewed:
1. The Milkmaid
.....(The Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam)
2. The Glass of Wine
.....(Gemäldegalerie, Berlin)
3. View of Delft
.....(The Mauritshuis, The Hague)
4. Woman in Blue Reading a Letter
.....(The Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam)
5. Woman Holding a Balance
.....(The National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.)
6. Woman with a Pearl Necklace
.....(Gemäldegalerie, Berlin)
7. A Lady Writing
.....(The National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.)
8. Girl with a Red Hat
.....(The National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.)
9. Girl with a Flute
.....(The National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.)
10. The Girl with a Pearl Earring
.....(The Mauritshuis, The Hague)
11. The Love Letter
.....(The Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam)
12. Lady Writing a Letter with Her Maid
.....(National Gallery, Dublin)
13. A Maid Asleep
.....(The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York)
14. Officer and Laughing Girl
.....(The Frick Collection, New York)
15. Girl Interrupted in Her Music
.....(The Frick Collection, New York)
16. Woman with a Lute
.....(The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York)
17. Study of a Young Woman
.....(The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York)
18. Mistress and Maid
.....(The Frick Collection, New York)
19. Allegory of Faith
.....(The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York)





Vermeers for future viewing:
1. Diana and Her Companions
.....(Mauritshuis, The Hague)
2. Christ in the House of Martha and Mary
.....(National Gallery, Edinburgh)
3. The Procuress
.....(Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden)
4. A Girl Reading a Letter by an Open Window
.....(Gemäldegalerie, Dresden)
5. The Little Street
.....(Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam)
6. The Girl with a Glass of Wine
.....(Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum, Brunswick)
7. The Music Lesson
.....(The Royal Collection, The Windsor Castle)
8. Young Woman with a Water Pitcher
.....(The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York)
9. The Concert
.....(Isabella Gardner Museum, Boston)
10. The Art of Painting
.....(Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna)
11. The Astronomer
.....(The Louvre, Paris)
12. The Geographer
.....(Städelsches Kunstinstitut, Frankfurt am Main)
13. The Lacemaker
.....(The Louvre, Paris)
14. The Guitarplayer
.....(Kenwood)
15. A Lady Standing at a Virginal
.....(National Gallery, London)
16. A Lady Seated at a Virginal
.....(National Gallery, London)
17. A Young Woman Seated at the Virginals
.....(Private collection, New York)

Sunday night POD

Mickey Mouse street art.

Luck be a lady tonight

On my walk home from work tonight, I stopped by the National Gallery to see this painting:


"Lady Writing a Letter With Her Maid" by Johannes Vermeer.

With five Vermeer paintings consciously visited and admired, I am on a quest to seek out and pay homage to the other thirty. Unfortunately, The Lady is currently on loan in Tokyo and is not returning to Dublin until January. Without my guide books, I flew by the seat of my pants, if you can say that about something that you would do at an art gallery, and went off exploring on my own. The gallery was nice -- easy to navigate, calm at this time of day, free, and a woman sang baroque music in the corner with some chamber music accompaniment.

I saw a Hals, a Caravaggio, a Modigliani, a Brueghel the Younger, and a Reubens among others. I am only hoping that The Lady does not let me down and returns back to Dublin before I have to leave.

2 paintings to consider on a Saturday morning with my eggs and coffee

1.
Roommate Mike visited Chicago last weekend and came back with a print of Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks, which he purchased after seeing it at the Art Institute. That reminded me of the Hopper exhibit at the National Gallery in DC last year and how I couldn’t at the time find a print of my favorite – Automat.



Both paintings depict isolation and loneliness in a big city. To me, Automat does a slightly better job of describing that feeling. Unlike Nighthawks, we cannot see the street outside through the big dark window nor can we see a reflection of the inside of the restaurant besides the lighting fixtures. My favorite detail is her one gloved hand, which makes me imagine that she is in a hurry OR maybe she just does not care. She is not looking up. There is no one there to impress, and certainly no people-watching.

As a layperson and not a professional art critic, I give myself free reign to judge paintings based on their attractiveness. I find the bright, rich splashes of color on the dark background attractive and think, “Pretty picture.” In Nighthawks, there is no door to get in or out of the diner (representing entrapment), but to me, it makes the diner look sort of like a fishbowl and the painting just slightly “off”.

2.
After reading A Forger’s Spell, I became really interested in paintings by Dutch master Johannes Vermeer. In Berlin next week, I plan to see A Glass of Wine and am fiercely hoping that the painting is not out on commission or traveling somewhere.



Vermeer paintings are considered to be beautiful – well-balanced, serene, finely detailed. If this is a scene from everyday life, what is happening? Why is the woman tasting the wine? Is the man getting her drunk? (He seems impatient. Or are those just my 21st century notions?) Why isn’t he drinking? Why isn’t he sitting down with her? Why is he wearing what I imagine to be a traveling cloak? Are either of them going to pick up that guitar off the chair and play some seventeenth century tunes?

Forger's Spell

The Forger's Spell: A True Story of Vermeer, Nazis, and the Greatest Art Hoax of the Twentieth Century
by Edward Dolnick

This art history book reads not like a textbook but like a novel. It tells the story of Han van Meegeren, a mediocre artist from the 1930's, who paints a handful of forgeries and convinces the art world that they are authentic paintings by the Dutch master Vermeer from the 17th century. The book jumps around from a chapter on van Meegeren's background, to a chapter on Hitler, to a chapter on Vermeer, back to a chapter on van Meegeren's technique, to a chapter on a revered art connoisseur. Somehow it all comes together and makes for an engaging story. The author explains exactly how van Meegeren was able to make the paintings look "old" and pass simple scientific tests, why the art critics were taken in by the fakes, and how the entire hoax eventually unraveled. The color insert in the book allows you to compare authentic Vermeers to the forgeries painted by van Meegeren.

5 out of 5

Today there are only 36 recognized Vermeer paintings in the world. Eleven of them are housed in museums in the United States, four of them at the National Gallery of Art in DC. I took a quick trip to visit them this afternoon, and I must say that it was an afternoon well-spent. Perhaps "Girl With a Pearl Earring" starring Colin "Mr. Darcy" Firth deserves another viewing as well.


Woman Holding a Balance, Johannes Vermeer, National Gallery of Art

Berlin Graffiti

I both love and hate the internet because you'll start in one place and ten links later you'll find you've gone down a rabbit hole and are looking at something completely unexpected.

I started reading an NYT article on where to eat and what museums to see in Berlin. A few clicks later I found these two interesting sites:

1. Berlin Wall Art. This site has a gallery of over 80 photos of the west side of the Berlin Wall, six months before it was torn down. Artists and visitors on the west side of the wall had the freedom of expression to draw and write messages on the concrete walls. I tried finding an art book on amazon that has a similar collection, but unfortunately nothing caught my fancy.



2. Banksy's Tour in Berlin. Banksy is a British street artist who does a lot of cool graffiti with stencils. This Google map shows 32 of his pieces artwork he spraypainted in 2003 and 2004 in Berlin. A few were featured in a book I have, Wall and Piece. Here are some good ones:

What It Is

I am anxiously awaiting the arrival of my copy of What It Is by Lynda Barry from amazon. Part autobiography, part picture book, part activity book, Ms. Barry explores philosophical questions such as "Can we imagine something that we can't remember?" through her drawings, collages, watercolors, etc. I decided to become an owner of this book after reading this NYT review. Today I also found it mentioned in Julia Rothman's blog, Book By Its Cover. Rothman shows pictures and writes about art, design, handmade, comics, or children's books that she finds and enjoys. I want to own them allllll, each and every one.

Who the #$&% Is Jackson Pollock?

Documentary about a 70-year old lady truck driver who buys a $5-dollar painting in a thrift store and then has a decade-long battle with the art world to authenticate the painting as a real Pollock. It was sort of frustrating to watch. You want the art "experts" to be right, since they are the ones telling us what is real and what isn't and basically determining what we see when we go to an art gallery. But then their only argument against forensic investigations that led to fingerprint and paint sample matches is that art is not a crime scene. They provide the following proof for why the painting is NOT a Pollock: "This is not an authentic Pollock. I am an art expert, and you are not." Very frustrating.

POWER OF ART

LONGHENA - "THE SALUTE". I've recently decided to brush up on my art history. Or rather, Netflix came up with this brilliant idea and gave me a friendly nudge by recommending that I rent Simon Schama's Power of Art. This 3-DVD BBC series has an hour-long episode for each of 8 artists: Caravaggio, Bernini, Rembrandt, David, Turner, Van Gogh, Picasso, and Rothko. I am pretty pumped to watch these and squirrel away some more knowledge other than LONGHENA - "THE SALUTE".

LONGHENA - "THE SALUTE" was my mantra when studying for the AP art history test back in high school. For whatever reason, I was convinced that one of the multiple choice questions would ask me to either name the architect of the "Salute" or name the basilica that Longhena designed. To this day I remember that the answer would have been LONGHENA or "THE SALUTE", but not what the structure looks like or its significance or its location (probably Italy, the hub of all things finer).

Power of Art would have provided some much-needed relief for my mental sanity back in, say 1999, but today it provides much-needed finer thing entertainment. The stories are dramatic, the actors intense, Schama . . . very Oxford, very British. Tonight I learned about Caravaggio, a "thug" who made it big in Rome with sensations such as this, The Calling of St. Matthew:



Umm, I'm pretty much a Caravaggio expert now. Believe it.

Propaganda

Someone on metafilter posted a link to the Soviet Museum where I found more propaganda prints with which I would like to paper the walls of our apartment. I've already won one large-scale battle in the war of apartment decoration -- Fred, the alligator head, is no longer prominently displayed on the bookshelf. Cry me a river.

What are the chances of me getting some Soviet propaganda prints up on the walls? Retro fierce! Try and tell me this one won't make the room more "homey".



I probably don't even need to mention that it comes with a golden nugget of advice: BUNS DON'T GROW ON TREES. REMEMBER, LITTLE BOY. BREAD -- IT'S HARD WORK!

No End in Sight

Tonight I watched a documentary called No End in Sight (number 7 on the 2007 Howard Movie List), which chronicles the invasion of Iraq and its subsequent occupation and the mistakes that were made along the way. The film briefly touches upon the National Museum of Iraq, which contains a large collection of art and historical artifacts from the Mesopotamian civilization, the "cradle of civilization", thousands of years old.

The museum was looted in 2003 after the U.S. invasion of Baghdad, and the U.S. government was criticized at the time for not protecting the museum. When asked about the museum's looting, Donald Rumsfeld replied, "To try to pass off the fact of that unfortunate activity to a deficit in the war plan strikes me as a stretch."

The Oprah Magazine, April 2008

On a solo lunch trip to Whole Foods last week, I bought my first ever Oprah magazine to keep myself and my salmon sushi company. Other than having occasionally enjoyed some of her book club selections, I have by no means been an Oprah fanatic and have not kept up with the world of Oprah. But, to be quite honest, after perusing the April issue, I can't help but think that Oprah knows how to get a girl excited. Oprah knows.

1. Tiny Showcase. This site picks a new piece of tiny artwork by an up-and-coming artist each week and make a limited number of prints. A percentage of the money goes to a charity of the artist's choosing. The pieces cost $20-$30, are printed on fancy German printmaking paper that lasts at least 60 years, and will for sure be more original than the Van Gogh prints you can buy at one of those online poster stores.

2. Artscape. America's largest free public arts festival is held in Baltimore every year. I am blocking off July 18-20 on my calendar for street theater, films, music, crafts, jewelry, exhibitions, outdoor sculpture, photography, dance, opera, fashion, basically a finer things orgy.

3. NEWTREE gourmet belgian chocolate. I know that I am a chocoholic, but these just look too damn good.

4. Four-ingredient dinner. The magazine features an essay/article by Cindy Chupack (Sex and the City writer) on hosting a "four-ingredient" dinner. I am definitely on board. The premise is to invite a small group of friends, individually or collectively choose a total of four favorite ingredients, and build a meal around those four. If the meal is not a perfect success, there should always be infused vodka on hand. I've hosted an afternoon tea party, an appetizers and drinks party, a baking party. A four-ingredient dinner with infused vodka is definitely the next progression.

The Barnes Foundation

Yesterday morning, Alison and I drove up to Philly to visit Kristin and see the Barnes Foundation in Merion Station, PA. This is a private collection of over 800 paintings by famous Impressionists, post-Impressionists, and modern artists such as Van Gogh, Renoir, Cezanne, Seurat, Matisse, Picasso, and Modigliani. Dr. Albert Barnes, the collector and founder of the foundation, arranged the paintings into "wall ensembles" that he chose himself and that he specified could not be altered. The foundation's charter and bylaws state that the works must always be displayed as arranged by Dr. Barnes. He was also very particular about not loaning the works out or have them travel, as well as the number of visitors that could see the collection in any given week. The foundation ran into financial trouble in the last 10 years, and now there is a controversy surrounding the gallery and its movement from Merion to a site in Philly. We wanted to check it out before it moved.

The best word to describe what you feel when you enter is: Overwhelmed. This was unlike any other museum exhibit I have been to or could have imagined. Dr. Barnes arranged paintings practically one on top of the other, covering each wall. Some are too high to see properly. There are no descriptions next to any of the paintings -- no title, artist, year, country. At best, you can squint to look at the artist's name, etched on the frame (you will be reprimanded if you step too close to a painting, inside the black electrical tape on the floor). Asian art will be placed next to a Byzantine triptych, which will be placed next to a Renoir painting of a bather. Amid the chaos of the art, Barnes has also strategically arranged pieces of iron work. We thought they might be something stolen out of a Medieval church - there were circular designs, curly designs, forks, spoons, craziness.

I was looking forward to seeing a painting by Seurat called "Models" (see top painting above). Seurat's pointilism technique is awesome. Up close, you can see that each brush-stroke is an individual dot or point. From afar, you see the picture as a whole. Two of my most favorite paintings are his "Sunday Afternoon.." which I know I've seen but I don't remember where (Paris?) and "Bathers in Asnieres" which I saw at the National Gallery in London. "Models" is drawn on the same large scale as the other two, and has a painting in a painting, since you can see part of "Sunday Afternoon" in the background. Unfortunately, Barnes placed "Models" too high for anyone to get anywhere near close to it.

I wish there were a book that describes how each wall of each room is arranged. For example, on one wall, Barnes did not like a red flower in a particular painting. He arranged other paintings on the same wall with bits of red in them to anchor that red flower and draw imaginary triangles with the eye. A large iron casting at the top of the arrangement is meant to complement or anchor the large hat on Madame Cezanne, in the bottom center painting. On another wall, he has an El Greco painting that depicts a monk (?) but is mostly a study of the folds and the shading of his robes in candlelight. Barnes placed a painting of Cezanne's to show how El Greco influenced Cezanne's still-life of a skull and fruit. Yet another wall had a painting by Hieronymus Bosch showing some pig people. I started thinking out loud about how he paints hell in his works, and a man walked up to us and said that painting was depicting hell, and on the other side of the wall, in the next room, on that exact spot, Barnes had placed a painting of heaven. We made guesses about the ironwork. Barnes placed a huge fork next to a painting of trees. Perhaps the shape of the fork emulates the shapes of the trees? (per Kristin).

I walked away from this gallery thinking that Albert Barnes is a madman and feeling entirely overwhelmed (and even slightly faint, but that could have been the after-effects of my morning venti cappuccino). However, it was definitely a cool experience, and the madman definitely has a lot of fantastic art that you wouldn't be able to see in any other exhibition if it's never allowed to travel.

Thanks to Kristin for introducing us to the Barnes Foundation!