Tiago Carneiro da Cunha working on Mudman at University of the Arts

The artist’s residency for the internationally recognized artist was arranged with the help of his hosts, contemporary art collectors Mari and Peter Shaw. He is not the first international artist the couple has brought to Philadelphia and the University of the Arts, providing a chance for students, faculty and the visiting artist to have an exchange.

Tiago Carneiro da Cunha, alegoria, alegoria, 2009 faiança policromada / polichrome faience 12 (a) x 35 x 35 cms, in part inspired by the song Alegria, alegria. and a cartoon of an art critic as a barking leashed dog

Tiago is far from his family. His wife, he says, has “a baby bump”–the couple’s first is due in January (it’s a girl)! When I visit him he has just returned from a quick trip home, and seems a little sad that he’s missing this experience with his wife. He seems a little startled by the changes in her belly, even though they have been staying in touch via Skype (a nice lesson in the differences between immediate and mediated, 2-D and 3-D).

Tiago Carneiro da Cunha's skull ashtray includes a rest for the cigarette or cigar; smoke comes out the note and eye cavities when a cigarette is resting there.

At 34,  Tiago is full of charm, energy and enthusiasm. He apologizes for the small amount of work in the studio. Besides the figure, there are a couple of ultra-lumpy skull ashtrays with drippy glazes, part of a larger series with no two exactly alike. When I ask what they fetch at his gallery, he seems almost apologetic when he says $2,000. “They are either an expensive ashtray or a reasonably priced sculpture.”

Tiago Carnerio da Cunha, antropomorfismo nietzschiano coçando, 2009 faiança policromada / polichrome faience 30 x 31 x 40 cms; the philosopher is scratching his balls and not getting much done

His work, inspired by kitsch-y objects, cartoons, fables and movies from Brazil, fits snugly in what’s going on in U.S. and international art, and also Philadelphia art–Jeff Koons, Urs Fischer, Paul Swenbeck.

Tiago’s taste in easy listening as he works in the studio reflects his engagement in popular culture. ” I’ve been watching House Husbands of Hollywood, a horror movie, the newest episode of South Park. I’m really trashy in my tastes.”

generalidade / generality 2009 faiança policromada / polichrome faience 29 x 25 x 23 cms

That same relish for the tacky comes through in the work, but, Tiago’s work, like the artist himself, has a boyish sweetness and playfulness as he mucks about with materials and ideas and culture. It’s tacky as thoughtful commentary on the themes of death, corruption, greed, waste and the human comedy.

Tiago Carneiro da Cunha, latinoamericano pensante verde e amarelo / green yellow latinamerican thinking, 2004

Among the figurines that have inspired Tiago’s work are a sleepy Mexican drowsing under a giant sombrero, a masturbating monkey, surf boards and diamonds. “They are all sort of cliches, they are all sort of ready mades usually involving sex.” He tells me about another popular figurine in Brazil–a caped priest with a mechanical erection–one of the inspirations for his Generality caped military man.

Tiago Carneiro da Cunha, pedinte pequeno / small beggar 2009 faiança policromada / polichrome faience 21 x 21 x 24 cm

Saccharine beggars is another favorite theme. “…The beggar is a Brazilian traditional figure, portraying misery at the same time that it becomes an opportunistic cliche [i.e. a cheap figure for sale]. I wanted to make it even more pathetic and sarcastic. It’s a reaction to seeing the real beggars on the streets in Brazil.  There’s emotion there. I wanted to do something with that .”

caveira realista roxo perolado 2004 resina de poliester moldada, polida a mão / cast poliester resin, hand-polished 13 x 12 x 20 cms edição variada de 7 mais P.A. / edition variee of 7 plus A.P. coleção privada / private collection

His work has veered from slick, faceted objects cast in epoxy to chunky clay objects heavily imprinted with exaggerated thumb impressions and coated with drippy glazes. Tiago says the elegant facets on the epoxy pieces (which start as plaster) and the crude-looking fingerprints and the exaggerated lines in the clay work are all one–a preoccupation with gesture. “I think the subject matter is an excuse,” he said. “They are about preserving values more linked to drawing. …The facets and the thumb prints are the same thing, defining planes and spaces. I wanted to rescue drawing. I started drawing as a teenager. …With the resin I’m reducing the gesture to something shiny.” He switched to epoxy when he realized his folded paper sculptures were easily damaged.

Tiago Carneiro da Cunha, meu 2001 rosa bebê / baby pink my 2001, 2004 resina de poliester moldada, polida a mão / cast poliester resin, hand-polished 50 x 22 x 35 cms edição variada de 7 mais P.A. / edition variee of 7 plus A.P. coleção privada / private collection

Here’s a little more of our conversation:

L. Tell me about your name?
T. My name is from my father’s side of the family, which comes from the Northeast side of the country. Historically, they are famous slave ones and abolitionists in equal number. My mother is a Hungarian Jew. She was born in Portugal but migrated to Brazil. I’m mixed. I’m Jewish but I was baptized. My mother is a professor of anthropology at the University of Chicago. She has lived here for the past 20 or so years. So I’ve been in this country before. (His English is great).

Tiago Carneiro da Cunha, zumbi faiança policromada 23 x 30 x 27 cms

L. Has the U.S. changed since the last time you were here?
T. The general perception of the states by Americans themselves has matured. Americans no longer think that the U.S. is the center of the universe. That’s better.

L. Are you excited about the Olympics?
T. At first I was cynical. Brazil has a tradition of public officials stealing money. Huge pubic works in Brazil are started and then never finished. But when I went back, my friends were excited, and now I’m excited too.  International pressure for accountability is too great for the Olympics projects not to get done.

Tiago Carneiro da Cunha, esfinge amarela / yellow sphynx resina de poliester moldada, polida a mão / cast poliester resin, hand-polished 28 x 27 x 60 cm edição variada de 7 mais P.A. / edition variee of 7 plus A.P. coleção privada / private collection

L.Where do you live?
T. in Rio. We used to live in a bohemian area that was in the middle of slums. At night we heard grenades, anti-aircraft, machine guns. Now we live in Leme; it’s a community of 18,000 people who all work hard, but it’s dominated by a small gang of 18 to 15 youths. …An effort is being made now to institute community policing. People realized power could be taken back.

Tiago told me that his method of sculpting in clay horrifies the ceramics artists. “I start with a solid piece of clay and carve it. It’s not safe. It’s not the kosher way to do it. I create tunnels and other ways to hollow it out. I don’t think of myself as a sculptor, anyway. I always used domestic sized kilns, That’s how ceramics survived in Brazil. There’s not a ceramics market there to allow ceramics to be risky.”

Tiago Carneiro da Cunha, gargantua rex 2009 faiança / faience 42 x 43 x 38 cms

I asked him if he’s ever had a piece explode. Yes, he said. Will this one be okay? “I hope so. I think so.”

The photos in this post are all by permission of Tiago, taken from his website, which is a preformatted photo website hosted by SmugMug for $50 a year.

Postsscripts

Did the mudman sculpture survive the firing? I got the following notes from Tiago about it, now renamed the Philadelphia Experiment (tres Frankenstein).

1) 11/2/2009
i’ll be firing the mudman this week, which is my final week here in philly! it atually broke in half but the ceramics head technician here at uarts saved my life and helped me restore it. hopefully it will survive the kiln.

2) 11/5/2009
i’m coloring the big ‘mudman’ sculpture this afternoon… should be ready by tomorrow… i will definitely send u images as soon as it’s ready! by the way it’s called ‘the philadelphia experiment’: i thought that sounded like it had the right mix of b-horror references, hendrix, and what i was actually doing here…

Tiago Carneiro da Cunha, The Philadelphia Experiment, 2009

This is part 2 of Mari Shaw‘s post about Berlin Gallery Weekend.
Read Part 1. Parts 3 and 4 will follow.

A must- see Gallery Weekend show is a large installation by Andreas Siekman that inaugurates Galerie Barbara Weiss’s new ground floor space on Zimmerstrasse.

Andreas Siekman, detail, Negotiations Under Time Pressure, at Galerie Barbara Weiss. Photo courtesy of the gallery.

Siekman is a brilliant, gifted artist who, along with his talented artist wife Alice Creischer, has been an important and active voice in Germany’s left-leaning intelligentsia since the 1970s. After completing their studies at the famed Düsseldorf Academy, Siekman and Creischer moved to Berlin. Each of them founded much- heralded underground art magazines, engaged in spirited discussions about the nature of art and society with whoever was interested, and began 30 years of jointly creating highly political, community-based art projects all over the world. Siekman particularly has been a mainstay of important, public art exhibitions — like the Venice Biennale, two Documentas, two Muenster Sculpture Shows. He is so strong intellectually that curators in Germany often solicit his view when they are conceptualizing public exhibitions. He is the real thing.

Siekman’s work at Galerie Barbara Weiss, Negotiations Under Time Pressure, examines the economics of the reunification of East and West Germany after the Berlin Wall came down. Siekman’s installation depicts the financial institution-led transformation of 13,800 East German nationally owned enterprises into incorporated firms in less than four years– at the rate of 15 per day. Siekman questions: at what price to the public and the urban landscape was this “miracle” of economic transformation, an economic model that has since been adopted in many places in the world?

Andreas Siekman, detail, Negotiations Under Time Pressure, at Galerie Barbara Weiss. Photo courtesy of the gallery.

Siekman covered the gallery walls with black and red, pop-looking computer generated drawings using the pictogram language of the 1920s.
In the center of the main gallery space, Seikman, with the help of an expert craftsman, built a Theatrum Mundi, Stations of a Mechanical Mechanism. Small wooden buildings of the financial institutions are in the center of a large table. A small conveyor belt circles around the building sculptures carrying fanciful miniature sculptures of the prominent banking and political players, the figures of liquidation. The Theatrum Mundi is reminiscent of an elaborate toy train display, complete with mountains and scenery and figures, that a bourgeois family might install near an ornament-laden Christmas tree.

Andreas Siekman, detail, Negotiations Under Time Pressure, at Galerie Barbara Weiss. Photo courtesy of the gallery.

To depict the transformed urban landscape, Siekman uses the art of Disneyland. His art seduces with perfectly crafted miniature people going round and round and black and red graphics to please our eyes and dull our senses, just as the market drivers gussy up our old Cities with eye-catching, high-rise glass malls for paying customers. Then the drug wears off and you see what the transformation has meant with your brain, the real locus of sight.

Andreas Siekman, detail, Glossary for Negotiations Under Time Pressure, at Galerie Barbara Weiss. Courtesy of the gallery. Read the Glossary here.

When I went to Potsdamer Platz to see a movie a week after I saw Siekman’s exhibition, I noticed the remaining remnant of an old German landmark building that had been sacrificed for the modern construction. The old wall was enclosed in glass as an architectural embellishment in the entertainment center/shopping mall/business development Potsdamer platz has become. It brought me right back to the Siekman exhibition.
I own work by Andreas Siekman–some drawings that were part of a series in his first Documenta show. I wish I had more. At one point, Peter and I went back to buy a beautiful multiple drawing work of his that we both loved, but a museum snapped it up before we had returned to make our purchase. I have had wonderful, free ranging conversations with Andreas and Alice around their kitchen table. I also interviewed them for a writing project that never came to fruition. They are both straight-forward, intelligent, right minded, honest through and through people whom I greatly respect. Andreas is an unbelievable character… so good hearted with boundless energy and a zig-zagging mind. Alice is steady and stable and a warm mother earth. I like them very, very much.

While you are at Galerie Barbara Weiss, peek upstairs into Barbara Weiss’ original gallery space. There hang samplings of other artists Weiss represents, including Thomas Bayrle, a fallen away Marxist who since the 1960s has been making remarkable hand drawn pop prints reflecting his political thinking. The Bayrle prints Barbara Weiss has hanging are beauties. I also own a Thomas Baryle print. I have been seated next to Thomas at dinner a couple of times. He is charming and amazingly youthful and open (He is 70).

This is part 1 of four parts.

Mona Hatoum, Undercurrent (red), 2008, Cloth covered electric cable, light bulbs, dimmer device, Edition of 3 plus 1 AP, at Galerie Max Hetzler Temporary, OsramHöfe, Berlin. image provided by Galerie Max Hetzler. Comments on this work will appear in part 3 of the post.

I emerged bleary-eyed from Tegel Airport for Berlin’s Fourth Gallery Weekend. The sun was shining and a Berlin breeze swept the city’s energy over me. It is true. Berlin pulses.

Four years ago, a group of prominent galleries in Berlin launched the Spring Season with a celebratory Gallery Weekend at the end of April/beginning of May. Berlin had already supplanted Cologne as the art capital of Germany, but art collectors were scarce in Berlin. The galleries felt it was time to attract art collectors from around the world and showcase their artists in the best possible way. The Berlin gallerists decided to feature curated single artist exhibitions in each of their galleries, rather than adopt the single location Art Fair model.

As a result, art viewing at Berlin’s Gallery Weekend differs dramatically and favorably from art viewing at Art Fairs. Looking at a single artist gallery show of multiple works, including major installations, presented with plenty of breathing room, puts to shame the experience of craning to see a jumble of art works by different artists hung cheek by jowl in a small booth in no particular order. In fact, a good slug of art fair offerings are specifically produced or selected for art fair booth-viewing and are not representative of the artist’s oeuvre.

Bigger and better than ever

This year, 34 galleries officially participated in Gallery Weekend, and literally hundreds of other galleries hung new shows and joined the excitement. Most of the galleries that participated in the first Gallery Weekend have moved to bigger spaces or added second locations.

Song Dong and Zhao Xiangyuan, Waste Not, installation detail, of Song Dong’s family’s stored objects awaiting some future reuse, at the exhibit Reimagining Asia at the The House of World Cultures in Berlin. Photo by Jochen Schmidt. Comments on this work will appear in part 4 of the post.

Every year, the old gallery areas expand exponentially, and new areas sprout new galleries. Last year, Brunnestrasse became the home of a string of galleries in raw spaces showing talented young artists. This year spanking new gallery spaces have cropped up on all sides of Berlin Contemporary Art Museum Hamburger Banhof. Virtually every gallery in Cologne now has its major gallery in Berlin. Explained one prominent Cologne gallerist who set up shop in Berlin just about a year ago: “I had to come. One day the phone just stopped ringing in Cologne.”

A good feeling here

Part of the good feeling of Gallery Weekend–and there is a very good feeling–is the generally relaxed atmosphere in Berlin, a city of culture, not money. Participating gallerists do not exude tension since they are on their home turf and not in hock for the tens of thousands of Euros an Art Fair booth costs plus shipping, travel, hotel, and other expenses they must try to recoup in a weekend. The exhibitions stay up for weeks, not days. The less well-heeled galleries in Berlin pay nothing to show their artists in their own funky or not so funky gallery spaces during Gallery Weekend and make a great contribution to the lively art fun.

The absence of mean and hungry collectors at Gallery Weekend adds immeasurably to the good feeling. Collectors are not frantic about being the first one in the door, because there are so many doors. Besides, the galleries have their full stock on hand so there is much more to go around. Instead of one overcrowded, under stocked, make-shift restaurant to feed at, there are hundreds of welcoming reasonably priced restaurants with outdoor eating areas for visitors to stop at as they walk from one gallery to the next. Every restaurant offers a variety of world-renowned German beer to soothe the nerves and lift the spirit. The proprietors are glad to see the hungry art crowd, and the service is professional. If time is short, there are donner kabobs (Turkish pitas stuffed with slivers of beef, pork or chicken and vegetables and your choice of topping) or bratwursts available everywhere. With full bellies, art visitors walk short distances through old Berlin streets redolent with history and full of hidden hofs (courtyards). The Berlin Gallery Weekend shows stay up through the first week in June, giving those who stay on or come later the opportunity for a nice, long, uninterrupted look during Berlin’s long, light days of May. And this May the sun has been shining nonstop which is not always the case in Berlin.

Link to part 1 of this post.
Link to part 2 of this post.
Link to part 3 of this post.
Link to part 4 of this post.

–Philadelphia collector and international traveler Mari Shaw last reported for us on ARCO, the Madrid art fairs. Shaw and her husband Peter spend several months each year in Berlin.

Thomas Hirschhorn, Concept Car, at Art Fair ARCO in Madrid

I overcame my art fair fatigue and visited Madrid’s Art Fair ARCO for the first time last weekend, lured in part by the exhibitions in Madrid’s great museums. How could I resist seeing the Picasso exhibition with the Spanish light in my eyes at the Reina Sofia, home of Picasso’s antiwar masterpiece Guernica? Nor did I want to pass up Velasquez at the Prado or the two part Modigliani show at the Thyssen-Bornemisz Museum and the Caixa Foundation. I was not disappointed.

ARCO is a kinder, gentler art fair. It is located a short ride away from Madrid’s fine museums all huddled within easy walking distance from each other. Museum going is an integral part of the ARCO experience. The fair is quintessentially Spanish…warm… inviting… minus the usual U.S. art world celebrities… packed with European and South American collectors of a less frenetic sort. The aisles are wonderfully wide. The spaces are spacious, and the atmosphere is relaxed.

At ARCO, there is nowhere near the kind of broad-based international artist representation that the Basels and Frieze Art Fairs offer. Nor do the ever-expanding number of off-site venues Miami Basel has spawned breed here. One is also unlikely to find the blue chip classics that line the walls in Basel or the star-studded gallery shows that London hosts during its Art Fair, Frieze. The overwhelming number of galleries at ARCO are Spanish and Latin American with a few from each of the other European countries as well. The rest of the world is markedly underrepresented.

Berlin gallerist Ulrich Gebauer has shown at ARCO for 13 years. An ARCO enthusiast, Gebauer explains that ARCO grew out of post Franco Spain’s deep desire to re-enter the democratic European Community. ARCO is a source of national pride. The media floods news of ARCO goings on. Every year the number of international collectors grows, but so too does the number of young and middle class Spanish collectors. In fact there were some grumblings at the Fair from long time attendees that ARCO had grown too big.

Carlier Gebauer’s booth offered a sampling of the fine artists the gallery represents. Two large, beautiful light paintings with faint glows by Chinese artist Kailiang Yang were scooped up shortly after the doors were unlocked for VIP collectors at 9:30 Wednesday morning. By late afternoon, Gebauer had already assembled an impressive waiting list for works by Yang who lives in Hamburg.

Thomas Hirschhorn, Concept Car detail

The crowd-stopper piece at ARCO was Swiss artist Thomas Hirschhorn’s Concept Car at Arndt and Partners of Berlin, which was snapped up by an important Brazilian Foundation. Watching passengers store their belongings in an overhead compartment of an airplane, Hirschhorn began thinking about one’s belongings and how important personal belongings are to their owners. Eventually he began building this car chock full inside and out with Hirschhorn belongings, arranged in a colorful abstract painting of things. The Hirschhorn belongings range from his well worn personal books to strings of key chains seemingly acquired for the project, but none-the-less his belongings.

Thomas Hirschhorn, Concept Car detail

Red dots proliferated quickly at Espacio Minimo, a reasonably priced gallery offering fresh, young work. Classical blue chip Spanish gallerist Elvira Gonzales and her two daughters presented a stunning booth featuring classic work by Jesus-Rafael Soto, Waltercio Caldas, Gego and others. The unexpected run-away hit at Gonzales’ booth were torn paper works by Elena Del Rivero. The beautiful, large white works stitched with black threads, sometimes with a dangling sewing needle and sometimes stitched with sequins. Gonzales quickly sold the one Del Rivero displayed in her booth and then ransacked the back room and gallery for the remaining five other examples from this body of work by Del Rivero, all of which sold. Gonzales promised to send latecomers images of new works as soon as Del Rivero makes more. Elena del Rivero, a 52-year-old artist who has worked for years with a focused and committed vision may be on the cusp of well-deserved greater recognition.

Gonzales also had a beautiful show at her gallery based on the circle that included Gego and Watercio Caldes, Adolfo Schlosser, Olafur Eliasson, Gunter Haese, along with a Damien Hirst dot painting and two beautiful small Robert Mangold drawings. A separate wall in the Gonzales gallery showed a wall of Del Rivero paintings, reflecting an ambitious project in which Del Rivero kept a diary of her personal artistic journey traveling to see Rembrandts around the world.

Red haired art grande dame Juana De Aizpuru’s striking booth included a one in three Joseph Kosuth sculpture consisting of a photograph of the shovel, the shovel and a definition of shovel in Spanish. She also had a large Georg Herold caviar painting which one collector described as the find of the Fair.

Ms. Aizpuru hosted a packed opening and dinner in her gallery on Friday evening for Polish artist Miroslaw Balka. The exhibition in a darkened room was dominated by a large jail-like structure with a constantly flashing, very bright naked light bulb hanging from the ceiling of the structure. The pain of this universal torture/interrogation chamber was palpable, evoking not only the pain of bright lights, but also unbearable noise and sleeplessness. I thought of the Nazi torture chambers in Eastern Europe, but it could just as easily have brought to mind Abu Ghraib or any of the other horrors of torture throughout history. Balka described his work as like a Haiku poem. He draws a few lines and the observer fills in the spaces. Aizpuru artist Joseph Kosuth starred the next evening with the opening of an exhibition of his writings on the façade of LaCasa Encendida in a work titled “At Last I Thought I Understood”, followed by a dinner in his honor.

Glenda Leon, Caja de Musica, vinyl records, wood, 7 x 10 x 7 cm., One Night Gallery, La Habana, 2006, Figge von Rosen Galerie, Cologne, 2006, one of the pieces seen at ARCO

Cuban Artist Carlos Garaicoa hosted a show of Cuban artists in a small gallery space he keeps below his Madrid apartment. Included were three pieces by Glenda Leon having to do with music—silent music. There was a record box and a record picture. The largest piece was a phonograph with a record on it, but the phonograph does not play, and hairs from the artist’s head are embedded in the record. At this exhibition, prominent Washington D.C. collectors Aaron and Barbara Levine bought their eighth Carlos Garaicoa piece, a beautiful two part photograph. Both photographs are of the same site in Cuba. The buildings in the first photograph were destroyed by the time of the second photograph, but the memory of the buildings’ presence is outlined in red and green thread in the second photograph [editor's note: This sounds like a piece that was in Garaicoa's ICA exhibit].

Juan Pérez Agirregoikoa, image taken at Exposición colectiva. Bienal de Lyon, Lyon, 2007, image courtesy Carreras Mugica Gallery

The interesting find of the Fair for Kramlich Collection Curator Christopher Eamon was a group of Boris Mikhailov photographs from the 1960s. Eamon was also taken by the works of Basque artists Juan Pérez Agirregoikoa who is living in Paris, Xabier Salaberria, and Asier Mendizabal, all of whom are represented by Carreras Mugica Gallery.

Xabier Salaberria, prints say, in reverse, It is not a garden table.

Thumbs up for ARCO. The Fair was short on frantic buying and long on new young artists to explore, great fish and congeniality, and Madrid’s museums were at their best.

–Art fair veteran Mari Shaw collects contemporary art. Here’s an interview of her on artblog.

I asked Mari Shaw if she made art herself. “I never took art classes. I started drawing as an adult, when I was a lawyer before I was married to Peter. Then I took sculpture at Fleisher Art Memorial. In Berlin, the museums are free from 6-10 pm Thursday nights. I go and draw, with my sketch book and a pencil. My favorite spot is the Pergamon Museum. I have lots of favorite spots inside. I use a pencil but I started experimenting with a soft eye liner. There are lots of tourists and students. I talk with them. I know German pretty well, enough to get along.”

Germany


Shaw with one of her Isa Genzken pieces. The work will be on view at the New Museum in December.

The Shaws have had an apartment in Berlin for around four years now in the Mitte or central section of town. “I love it and Peter loves it too. Berlin is not an expensive city. When the east and west combined they had so much space… rents are still lower than Philly even. It’s changing but still you can have a big studio for little money…More than half of the art community is not German. I missed Woodstock (the rock festival) but this time I’m getting there…I’m there front and center,” she said, meaning that Berlin is her Woodstock and she’s plunged in headfirst.

What are you excited about in Philadelphia

“I’m very excited about all the new spaces coming up. I’m very excited about Thaddeus Squire (Peregrine Arts artistic director — Shaw told me she’s working on a project with him). I’m very excited about the new president of UArts. And even though I was against it I’m excited about the Barnes move. It’ll be an enormous draw. People in Europe ask me about it.

“I’m very very very excited about Michael Nutter being mayor. We know he’s going to support culture. I’m hoping I or someone else will persuade him to make culture the marketing of Philadelphia as a global city.

“Philadelphia has a reputation in the world as a great culture community. People in Europe know we have Duchamp here…and the orchestra. In theatre, everyone knows the Wilma. People get excited about Philadelphia.”

The future of the Shaw collection

“Each month or so we have a group come through (the house) to see our collection. We’re not going to have a vanity museum. I would like to have a database of the collection. We always have around 6 pieces traveling. We keep track of it (manually).

“We’re commited to young living artists. We believe they need to be seen. I also try not to turn down local museums (who want to borrow work). I haven’t allowed our Ryman from 63 to travel or our Twombly from 63. And nothing for the Biennials. It’s too risky.

“Our two Isa Genzkens are going to the New Museum (of Contemporary Art) for the opening. I have some jewelry traveling in Europe.

“About the future, we don’t know. Maybe split it up between various museums…or sell it and put the money in a foundation. I’m not going to dictate to a museum (what to do with the art) …Leaving it to the kids is too big a burden on them. Probably it’ll be a mix.

How did you start collecting?

“I didn’t want to collect art. It was Peter. I’m a child of the 1940s. (I believe) art belongs to the people. Peter took me to the museum and said look at the labels…everything was “from this collection…from that collection.” And that convinced her that collecting could ultimately be public–for the people.

“We buy virtually everything from the primary market. The artist gets the benefit. We can’t afford anything we own today!”

“We open our doors to museums and educators and we have fundraising dinners. Even though I was against (collecting) at first I love interacting with artists. I like interacting with academics too, but artists…

“We try very hard to support local artists. We intersperse local and international art and the local art holds up!

Shaw has taught a course on originality at University of Pennsylvania which delved into Lawrence Lessig’s book Free Culture and the concept of the creative commons. Recently she proposed a new course at Penn, a graduate-level art history seminar on German art, comparing Weimar era art with contemporary German art. The course – not yet approved by the school, says Penn’s Brownlee — would involve a week-long immersion trip to Berlin with on-site talks by artists, architects, gallerists and collectors, everything arranged by Shaw.

One of the great things about Mari Shaw is that she thinks outside the box. Because she operates pretty much outside the old-school Philadelphia art world network she is free to do things like approach institutions to teach new classes or initiate an artist’s residency program. Mari Shaw gets things done. She’s the artist of deal-making and can-do. Her way of doing things is creative and forward-moving and we’re fortunate to have her solving problems and moving mountains right here in Philadelphia.

More photos at flickr.

Mari and Peter Shaw in their kitchen in Center City, looking at photos of an Ana Mendieta performance.

Mari Shaw’s stories — I got the bare bones of them right there with the promise of more details to come — were good ones involving action, deal brokering, and forward-momentum. I was amazed to hear what she told me: That internationally renowned artist and photographer Candida Hofer was coming to Philadelphia in a week to do a photo shoot; and that a new international residency program at University of the Arts had been set up with Portuguese artist Vasco Araujo, the first artist in residence. How was it that all this was happening I asked. Who is bringing these artists to Philadelphia? Shaw said, “I am.”

Shaw and her husband, Peter L. Shaw, collect art and live with a large contemporary collection in a Frank Furness-designed row house on Spruce Street in Center City. The Shaw collection includes work by big names and some less well known, international superstar artists and Philadelphia artists. Walking through the big house you’ll see major works by Donald Judd, Robert Ryman, Richard Serra, Ellsworth Kelly, Dan Flavin, Ana Mendieta and Isa Genzken, to mention a few. Interspersed are pieces by local artists Tristin Lowe, Eileen Neff, David Goerk and Stuart Netsky. The Shaws buy what they like and it’s clear that they like conceptual art, minimalist art and art whose meaning lies below the surface. And they’re all about the mix of local and international.

After a career as an intellectual property litigant for several of the biggest law firms in Philadelphia Shaw now spends her time collecting art, managing their collection, studying art, especially contemporary art and connecting with contemporary artists, curators, academics and others, often in fundraising dinners at their home.

“She’s a big, powerful and inventive force in the Philadelphia art scene,” says David Brownlee, professor and chair of art history at the University of Pennsylvania.

Mari Shaw posing with one of her Isa Genzken works at the PMA last April.

I met Mari Shaw briefly at the Philadelphia Museum of Art last April when Libby and I visited the first Notations installation before it opened. Shaw was there with PMA Curator of Contemporary Art Carlos Basualdo checking out her Isa Genzken piece which was on loan to the PMA for the show. “She’s a very good friend and I admire very much what she and Peter are doing,” says Basualdo. Basualdo especially likes how the Shaws weave together international artists and local artists in their collection. It’s their particular strong suit as collectors. “I’ve met Philadelphia artists at their house. They’re always bringing people together. It’s super nice,” he says.

Libby told you about Candida Hofer’s talk at Slought Foundation in September. Here’s my review of the recent Hofer exhibit at Sonnabend Gallery. And now, since Shaw is a big, although under-the-radar part of the art scene in Philadelphia, I’ll tell you about her.

Salad and mineral water

In several meetings in her kitchen over lunch of salad and mineral water, Shaw, youthful, slim and companionable, told me of her love of art, and her fascination with originality and creativity. The story rambled every which way and included bits about Philadelphia (she’s very, very, very excited about Michael Nutter being mayor because he’s going to support culture) and bits about Berlin where she and her husband spend time each year going to museums and the theatre and making connections in the art world they are players in.

Shaw and Curator of Contemporary Art, Carlos Basualdo, discussing the placement of the Isa Genzken piece in the PMA.

Her own story begins in Chicago, where she grew up. She had an uncle who lived nearby and he was a painter. When Shaw was six or seven, the uncle painted her picture. “He captured the determination in my eyes,” she said. She was close to him and they talked a lot. As soon as she could, Shaw started taking the train to the museum to look at art.

College years were spent in Illinois where she got a bachelor’s degree from University of Illinois (summa cum laude; Phi Beta Kappa), and in Wisconsin where she got a law degree at the University of Wisconsin (JD 1972, first in her class).

She married and had her first child, and had two children in her second marriage to Peter Shaw. Then, after practicing law at a high level for many years and bringing the stress of the job home with her, she decided she’d had enough. She retired from the law, although she still consults. But now her time is devoted to taking classes at University of Pennsylvania, teaching a class on originality there and reaching out to bring international artists to Philadelphia – and, she hopes, to bring Philadelphia artists to Berlin.

Shaw, standing in front of a Stuart Netsky piece, a re-interpretation of Seurat’s Island of Grande Jatte.

Some collectors don’t want to meet the artists. They don’t want to talk with the artists –they just want to own the art. Shaw likes nothing more than to talk with artists. “From the time I had my son 35 years ago,” Shaw said, “Watching him grow up and how his mind worked” she’s been on a quest to understand the process of creation. That fascination is what makes her want to be around artists. She’s been helping Vasco Araujo, the Portuguese artist she brought here for a residency at Uarts with a project at Independence Mall involving volunteers at the site of George Washington’s house (which will be a museum that will deal with Washington’s relationship with his slaves). She can’t go at the same time that Vasco is there, she said, or they wouldn’t get work done because they’d be talking with each other too much.

This ends part one. Read part 2 about Mari Shaw.

Candida Hofer, the internationally known German artist acclaimed for her enormous photographs of architectural spaces, is here in Philadelphia until the 27th. What she’s doing here, how her visit came about and what she had to say to a class of art history students at the University of Pennsylvania are what this post is about.

Why she’s here

Hofer is in town for 10 days to photograph a number of architectural spaces in Philadelphia–a miracle of sorts given the trouble she has had until now, and especially post 9/11, photographing U.S. architecture. Yet here she is with access, insurance, and permits, in the most cautious and litigious of cities.

Candida Hofer, Théâtre royal de la Monnaie/Koninklijke Muntschouwburg, 2006, C-print, 78.7 x w: 100.4 in., Patrick De Brock Gallery

The buildings she is photographing are City Hall, the Masonic Temple, several spaces at Girard College, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Temple Beth Sholom in Elkins Park, the Frank Furness art history library at Penn, PAFA’s old historic building, Eastern State Penitentiary and the Academy of Music.

How Hofer came to be here

How she came to be here and get access to all these buildings in Philadelphia has to do with Mari Shaw. Roberta and I first met Mari at the Art Museum, where one of her Isa Genzken sculptures was on loan. It turns out Mari is not only a major collector of contemporary art, but she loves to make things happen.

Here’s Mari Shaw in front of Stuart Netsky’s Grande Jatte, all made of sequins. The Netsky is a part of her extensive collection

Shaw owns not only some photographs by Hilla and Bernd Becher, Hofer’s mentors, but Shaw’s children own Hofer’s giant photographs of the Louvre. Shaw was visiting her friend Alexandra Pinho another major collector of contemporary art, who also established the Banco de’Espirito’s “very significant contemporary art collection.” Oh, yeah, and she’s the wife of the Portuguese Minister of the Economy. Pinho, like Shaw, loves to make things happen.

Hofer was in Portugal at the time, photographing Portuguese buildings at the invitation of the Pinhos, who wanted to project an image of Portugal and its beautiful buildings and its past through contemporary art.

Shaw thought it was a great idea. She met with Hofer in Berlin. “So I talked to Candida about doing something in Philadelphia and how Philadelphia was our first [capital] city and had the most interesting old buildings. …I assured her that Philadelphia would welcome her with open arms, and I would arrange [access] for her. I did not understand how time consuming that was. …I had to jump through a number of hoops.”

The hoops included signing contracts, negotiating to get charges waived and giving the copyright for reproduction rights to Hofer. She also had to arrange for insurance–done through Slought Foundation. “Hofer had never before needed insurance!” said Shaw. Only in the United States!!! Shaw made arrangements through Slought Foundation’s insurance. There were so many details, she hired an assistant, local art photographer–and Hofer fan–Christine McMonagle, to help. “She’s thrilled to be involved.”

Shaw figured out which buildings might interest Hofer. McMonagle took some preliminary photographs to help Hofer pick. “Candida in the past photographed mostly baroque buildings. I planned a variety of very different spaces and textures for her to photograph.”

“This has been 18 months in the making.”

The discussion

The room at Slought is like a cellar, the antithesis of the soaring spaces that fill so many of Hofer’s photographs.

Slought Foundation and Penn are part of Shaw’s network; she teaches at Penn as does Aaron Levy, who’s executive director of Slought. That’s how Hofer came to speak to Levy’s art history class.

The class assembled in a circle in the vault at Slought yesterday, a low-ceilinged room that feels like a cellar. Also joining the discussion were Shaw, three MFA students from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and Roberta and me. Then Hofer arrived with her two assisants–two young French women, Victoria and Alex, both sporting boots–and with McMonagle, who has the privilege of also working with the photo shoots. It made a grand total of 19 people in the small, windowless room.

I couldn’t help but laugh at the contrast between Hofer’s oeuvre of carefully lit, enormous spaces and the looming dimness of the crawl space we were occupying.

Hofer herself wore a giant-checked white and black jacket the only light spots in an otherwise all black outfit. Her hair–bangs straight across and a bob–accented her seriousness. I asked if I could take some photographs of her and she looked trapped for a moment, but then agreed.

Shaw told the story of how Hofer came to be here. When Hofer photographed City Hall, Shaw said, “I’ve never seen the people in City Hall so proud of anything,” a contrast to Philadelphia’s usual self-hating attytood.

Hofer in a closeup. (I don’t know why I bother taking my camera’s version of telephoto pictures. They are terrible. Hope springs eternal.)

Here are some highlights from Hofer’s answers to the groups’ questions:

She finds her subjects in books and the internet. And once she decides she is interested in a building, she doesn’t change her mind, at least so far.

When she takes a picture, she doesn’t necessarily take in all the details. But when she creates the big prints, “I’m more in the space than when I take the photograph.” She later said, “I don’t remember how the space looks when I do the prints. I also do them lighter than they [really] are, so they look fresher, lighter.” .

When she began, the photographs were smaller, but she said they are more real because they are bigger.

She does not see her photographs as being part of a series, but rather as individual pieces. “It doesn’t matter if I take the picture in Dublin or in Philadelphia,” she said.

She was a little opaque about why she chose what she did. “I do what I want; I do what I like.”

She shot down any idea of her pictures as a kind of cultural anthropology. “I don’t have this feeling.”

When Hofer enters a space to photograph it, her decisions are quick. “When I enter a room, I know quite soon what will be the best.” One of the assistants added that Hofer’s choices of what to shoot were intuitive. Then Hofer graciously added, “Victoria and Alex, immediately they understood what I want, what I need.” She also added that her other assistant,Ralph (not present at the talk), did the technical part and that Christine, Mari’s assistant, was helping “to arrange, bring things out.”

Hofer uses a big format camera and she works with both analog and digital. “We are getting more and more technical,” she said. She is impressed by the quality the digital cameras can give her. She and her crew immediately look at a digital picture on a lap top screen for instant feedback.

In Philadelphia, they are working with digital, partly because going through security is a problem for the film. “Sometimes it’s better analog, sometimes it’s better digital,” she said. “Don’t ask me why,” she said with a laugh.

Students listening to Hofer

Hofer has the same issues that all photographers who work with analog methods have–the disappearance of the film and the color photo labs. “I work with Kodak material…tungsten.” With its disappearance from the market, she has taken steps. “Last year I bought three big freezers, and every freezer is full with [analog] material.”

Hofer does crop her images.

McMonagle, who is accompanying the crew on the shoots, said it’s a great experience for herself, because it’s seeing familiar buildings anew, “looking at things I don’t normally think about.” Hofer added that it was quite the same for her, as when she visits the Louvre or the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles or Weimar. When it’s empty for her photography, “it looks different.”

“After you take a photograph, do you see [the space] differently?” Shaw wondered.

“Yes. I feel privileged that I can see it in another situation.”

Levy suggested that her works “map an idea with order.” With people, the spaces are disordered, he said. But she said that some of her photos from the past have people in them. And when a student suggested that the absence of people suggests the presence of people, Hofer was not so interested in that idea.

Besides talking about a number of buildings and projects she has photographed–from, most recently, the local Frank Lloyd Wright synagogue to the Yale Beineke rare books libary to a project to photograph the 12 casts of the Burghers of Calais. The Rodin project had previously brought her to Philadelphia. The project, about the 12 casts in 12 milieus, started her talking about how she likes to see her own work interacts with different exhibition spaces.

Candida Höfer, Biblioteca do Palacio Nacional da Ajuda Lisboa I, 2006, 66.9 x w: 59.8 in, C Print; this is one of the Portugal photographs at Sonnabend Gallery.

One of the students asked, “Do you have all your work from forever?”

“I hope so,” Hofer said. “I’m a photographer; I have to take care of my negatives.” She has an assistant to takes care of her archives and all the maintenance of her work. And the color photo lab she uses, which is in Dusseldorf, is very close to her studio/archive space. Her relationship with her lab–which she does not own, she specified–is there’s a technician there who she always works with. “The lab gives us a lot of space to work. We always work with the same technician. I can give them a phone call and they take care of it.”

Levy wondered if she was frustrated at being always identified as one of the Bechers’ many proteges, at least in English language books.

“Not for me, but for some of my colleagues,” she said. “I was one of the first of the students of the Bechers.” And through them, she came to show in the Konrad Fischer Gallerie.

She said history had nothing to do with her work, and she objected to a catalog essay from the Architecture of Absence show (that traveled her to the Institute of Contemporary Art) that suggested there was something significant about her having been born post WWII. “This was new to me,” she said of the concept. The curator “had the idea that this would be an influence on my work! And then because it was in one book, someone repeated it in other books.”

I asked if she would describe herself as a fan of architecture. She broke out in a big smile. “I am a fan.”

The timing on Hofer’s visit here coincides with her exhibit of the Portugal photos at Sonnabend Gallery, which Roberta will write about some time next week. She also will be writing about Shaw, the woman behind all of this–and lots more. Stay tuned.