Wilfrid Posted January 9, 2020 Share Posted January 9, 2020 Jesse Murry at Tibor de Nagy. Didn’t know about this until I opened the new New Yorker, and this weekend is the last chance. The reproduction in the magazine said Howard Hodgkin to me, and the TdN website is also encouraging. Anyone heard of him (died young, AIDS)? Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Wilfrid Posted January 12, 2020 Share Posted January 12, 2020 Felix Valloton at the Met through 1/26, worth seeing. I didn’t know much about him: 1865-1925 and involved with the Revue Blanche crowd and the Nabis. Early works are meticulously realistic domestic scenes and still lives with flashily brilliant captures of reflections in shiny surfaces. After a gap of a few years between 1887 and 1897, he comes back with a shallow pictorial space, an aggressive color palate, and much more nervy subjects. But in his last decade he seems to toggle between the two styles. The landscapes seem to me to be awful There are enough really good paintings here, though, and it’s a way of seeing that if someone is not a major painter they might be a very good minor one. The woodcuts in a side gallery are surely more interesting for their narrative content than their formal properties. The whole show is framed around narrative nonsense about couples and intimacy. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Behemoth Posted January 12, 2020 Share Posted January 12, 2020 Vija Celmins, big retrospective at the Breuer. I have tried and tried, and I thought seeing a lot her work together would help, but leaves me cold. The diligence is evident but I can’t get past the tedium of the subject matter. Night sky after night sky, sea after sea. Yes, the images are different, but I can’t see anything in the differences which matters. But maybe it’s me. I didn’t get Twombly for years, but he’s now one of my favorite painters. I like some of them. I wonder if she paints by sight, or if she uses projections like G. Richter. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Wilfrid Posted January 12, 2020 Share Posted January 12, 2020 From photographs. Her works seem to aspire to the condition of photography. Some earlier drawings are framed by newsprint as if torn from old magazines. She makes a light grid on the surface, then works from bottom right to top left copying the photo. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
AaronS Posted January 13, 2020 Share Posted January 13, 2020 I think of her as a lesser richter, I should go see that exhibit and see if that’s fair. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Wilfrid Posted January 13, 2020 Share Posted January 13, 2020 I am inclined to say it is. The practice is very similar, the subject matter desperately reduced. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Wilfrid Posted February 26, 2020 Share Posted February 26, 2020 Preview days for the new British galleries at the Met. The setting is half the fun, labyrinthine, darkly paneled, and with a spectacular carved staircase, itself an exhibit, leading to upper galleries. But are they taking the micky with all those teapots? Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Behemoth Posted February 29, 2020 Share Posted February 29, 2020 The Kunsthalle is showing a tapestry exhibit including stuff from Picasso, Miró, and...Louise Bourgeois. Gotta go. Finally got to this. Wow, on top of what was advertised, they had some tapestries as well as furniture from Gobelins with WWI weaponry motives, as well as a super creepy NS propaganda tapestry commissioned under occupation by Goebbels. Considerably less disturbing were some nice pieces from Corbusier and Calder (Philly!) and some very beautiful modern pieces. But the war & propaganda-related stuff I wasn't aware of before. From Bourgeois disappointingly they only had the one piece (a version of Sainte Sebastienne). No mention that her family had a tapestry restoration workshop. Or my favourite anecdote (Harpers?) where Bourgeois claims her mother was commissioned to remove genitalia from a bunch of old tapestries to make them more acceptable for buyers, and young Louise patched all the snipped pieces together into a big genitalia tapestry. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Wilfrid Posted March 10, 2020 Share Posted March 10, 2020 Rachel Feinstein at the Jewish Museum worth a look. Didn't know her work. Sculpture/installation, and the show is beautifully installed. https://thejewishmuseum.org/press/press-release/the-jewish-museum-to-present-first-survey-of-rachel-feinsteins-three-decade-career Quote Link to post Share on other sites
bloviatrix Posted March 10, 2020 Share Posted March 10, 2020 I saw the show several months ago. I was only familiar with her because she's married to John Currin and he's featured her in some of his work. I loved some of the pieces and I thought the wall paper was great. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Wilfrid Posted March 11, 2020 Share Posted March 11, 2020 Did not even know the Currin connection, but yes the walls are beautiful. Romare Bearden “Abstract” at DC Moore on West 22nd. Hadn’t seen any of this before, bubbly oil on canvas and linen roughly from 1959 to 1962. Hey, not very good. There are some collages in a side gallery from late 60s and 70s which are terrific of course. Road not taken. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Behemoth Posted March 11, 2020 Share Posted March 11, 2020 She was working at the Nymphenburg porcelain factory last year. That’s probably where those things were made. Cool stuff. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
voyager Posted March 31, 2020 Share Posted March 31, 2020 Spending the day sorting travel memorabilia, I ran across these two images. Unmarked, and of course I've forgotten their context. But they seem eerily apropos today. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Sneakeater Posted March 31, 2020 Share Posted March 31, 2020 That's Chuck in the one on the left, and you in the one on the right? 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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