Knight Arts Challenge Philadelphia names 55 finalists
The Knight Foundation released the names of 55 finalists for its Knight Arts Challenge Philadelphia 2012. Finalists include artists, musicians, collectives, and community groups in the region. Winners are to be announced in the Spring.

Visual arts finalists include: Asian Arts Initiative, Brandywine Workshop, Center City District, Center for Emerging Visual Artists, Chestnut Hill Friends Meetinghouse Project,COSACOSA art at large, Crane Arts, David Clayton, Erica Hawthorne, Fleisher Art Memorial, Franklin’s Paine Skatepark Fund, Geoffrey Johnson, Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corporation, Katarina Dudas, Little Berlin, Moore College of Art & Design, Philadelphia Art Alliance, Philadelphia Photo Arts Center, Philadelphia Youth Media Collaborative, RAIR, Inc., Scribe Video Center, Sean Stoops, The Clay Studio, The Fabric Workshop and Museum, The Hacktory, The University of the Arts, The Village of Arts and Humanities, University City District, and Vic Reznik.

Congratulations to all the finalists!

Met hires contemporary art curator away from Tate

Sheena Wagstaff

In a move to strengthen its role in contemporary art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art approved the appointment Sheena Wagstaff – a former curator at Tate London – as director of its new program of 20th and 21st Century art. The Met also plans to utilize the recently acquired Marcel Breuer building at Madison Avenue and 75th Street (otherwise known as the Whitney Museum of American Art) as its modern and contemporary outpost while it undergoes renovations.

Sharon Butler looks ahead to 2012
In a move to foresee the year of 2012, Sharon Butler makes seven predictions about the future in art. Among her predictions are that art funding will be on the rise, however artists will be faced with the ongoing challenge of how to represent their projects as giving back to the community. She also expects MFA enrollment to decline on account of fewer teaching jobs in the arts and a lack of job prospects for those studying art. That said, she expects new jobs to be created in the writing, art handling, and social media fields.

New Philadelphia art marketing campaign

Mayor Nutter with members of the art community today

The Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corporation (GPTMC) is set to launch a new marketing campaign – With Art Philadelphia – to bolster the city as a competitive global name in the arts. This effort marks the first coordinated and sustained marketing venture of its kind in the city, and coincides with the opening of the new Barnes Foundation.

People’s Biennial to open at Haverford College
Haverford College is hosting the People’s Biennial which opens on January 27. The show explores artists who work outside of the mainstream art world and includes 36 contemporary names from places not traditionally recognized as art hubs.  Philadelphia’s Maiza Hixson, artist and Curator at the DCCA,  has a video in this show.

Main Line Art Center director to retire
The board of the Main Line Art Center in Haverford has announced that long time Executive Director Judy Herman will retire in August. Herman has been the director for nearly 25 years and helped to greatly expand the art center’s staff and budget during her time as director.

Libby and Roberta Commonwealth Speakers
We told you before that Libby and Roberta were selected to share their knowledge as Commonwealth Speakers through the Pennsylvania Humanities Council. The full list of speakers has been released, as well as the application for talks at your location. Visit your local library or community center and ask them to have Libby and Roberta come talk about art!

Bryn Mawr Film Institute live screening of Da Vinci exhibit
We’ve heard that some operas have been broadcast in local theaters, well now the Bryn Mawr Film Institute brings us a live preview of the Leonardo Da Vinci exhibition at the UK’s National Gallery. The preview will screen on January 21 at 11:00 AM.

Vote for Philly artists!
So you’re not in Iowa, New Hampshire, or South Carolina to vote in the primaries? Well you can still vote for something worthwhile – local artists! Visit the West Collects site or Saatchi Online to cast your vote for Philadelphia artists in their respective competitions.

Opportunities

A new reality show called Ultimate Craft Throwdown is casting for creative individuals to showcase their skills on TV. If you think you have what it takes, e-mail CraftCasting@gmail.com with your full name and contact info, city, a short paragraph about you, as well as pictures of you and your work. The deadline is January 20.

Art in City Hall is seeking artists for Meta-Fiber, part of FiberPhiladelphia 2012. The call is open to artists working with fiber and textiles in non-traditional ways.

Goggleworks Center for the Arts in Reading, PA has an open call for its show Vanity Fare Art Inspired by Fashion. The deadline is January 28.

Rhizome Commisions 2012 is on the lookout for emerging artists who create significant works of new media art. Grants generally range from $1000 – $5000. The deadline is April 15.

The Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts in Omaha has opened up applications for their 2013 residency (via Wooloo.org). Applications are open in a variety of media: conceptual, drawing, film, installation, and digital. The deadline is February 28.

Flying Kite brings us this fun opportunity: Headlong Dance Company is looking to turn your house into a dance space! The group is seeking interested/interesting individuals to host a performance entitled “This Town is a Mystery” for the Live Arts Festival in September. Find details and application materials here.

The West Collection has announced its 2012 “Make” series. Proposals for 1-2 hour workshops are the name of the game. Propose a good workshop and get paid $500 to teach it! Send your outline to lee@westcollection.org by February 15 to be considered.

Proposals are currently being accepted for the Museum of Art and Peace in Germantown. The quarterly exhibitions feature work involved with social justice and peacemaking ideals. Visit the submissions page for all the information.

Artist News

Theodore A. Harris, "On the Throne of Fire", 2008, mixed media collage.

In the Media: Theodore Harris, Philadelphia collage and assemblage artist, was featured in an interview with Montreal Serai.

From the Extra Extra interview, "Fast Meridian", 2011.

The fine people from Extra Extra sat down with Title Magazine for an interview, and there is also a 30-minute podcast of their discussion as well.

The Mormons and the Dubins

Back in April, my son Alex had a birthday, but we came up short on a gift. Alex loves musicals, so Murray tracked down tickets to the Book of Mormon for Alex, Lindsey and us. The wait has been long, but worth it. As musicals go, The Book of Mormon raises anti-PC humor to an astonishing level; it’s a musical that dares to suggest that belief in fucking a virgin to cure AIDS is no more outrageous than belief in the angel Moroni or in the virgin birth (yikes, two virgins, three religions, one sentence). Suited-up “Mormons” doing Busby Berkeley numbers are a highlight. So is relentless bad language delivered with exuberance. Can you snag a ticket to this? Eventually. Is it worth the wait? No doubt at all.

Cattelan and Renaissance Portraits

Sorry, Met, but we had a better time at the Maurizio Cattelan exhibit at the Guggenheim and at the tour at the Tenement Museum.

Maurizio Cattelan, All installation, with Stone Dead taxidermied dog above and Untitled resin sculpture of woman crucified in a box below., 2008

The impudent Cattelan’s 3-ring circus of an installation, All, is at once ebullient and melancholy. He hangs all his oeuvre, or close to it, in the atrium.

The experience has a Where’s Waldo quality, offering an opportunity to search and rummage through the artist’s past. Because the objects are often massive, are often mounted on floating plinths, and are numerous, they obscure one another, so the march up or down the ramp offers new perspectives and new revelations all along the way. The aerial act is both delightful and a constant revelation, filled with competing focal points–yes, a circus.

Maurizio Cattelan, All installation from below, with several taxidermied animals

But as circus’ aerial acts get their power from the frisson of imminent danger, this installation gets some of its power from the frisson of imminent death. Cattelan has been a consistent explorer of the limits of the body and of happenstance and powerlessness. Even the Pope takes a licking and doesn’t keep on ticking in Cattelan’s world. John F. Kennedy, in his coffin, wears no shoes. A photo of hands reaching from the ground suggest a man buried in the sand still praying for succor to a God who doesn’t answer.

Maurizio Cattelan, All installation detail with the Pope hit by a meteor, center

Taxidermied animals are stand-ins for humans. The powerful horse is reduced to a dead body. The tiny squirrel dies at the kitchen table. Cattelan ‘s use of Mme. Toussaud-like fleshtones parallels the taxidermied animals. The themes of death and powerlessness bring to mind the themes of another wax-works-style sculptor, Ron Mueck.

Maurizio Cattelan, All installation detail

The exhibit is about the inevitability of failure and death. And speaking of final endings, the show ends Jan. 22.

The Renaissance Portrait From Donatello to Bellini, at the Met is marvelous, but the exhibition notes wore me down. I could barely take in what they were saying, and when I could, I found they raised more questions than they answered. For instance, on what basis do the curators assert that one man’s hair color is probably dyed. How do they know that?

The exhibit shows how portraiture began with strict, flat profiles and progressed to full-face and three-quarter face images. Equally wonderful and perversely obverse the continuity of portraiture. The 15th-century faces look contemporary and completely individual. They are the snapshots of their day–opportunities to commemorate events, relations and lovers, preserving them as keepsakes and aides memoires. Drawings, paintings and other works in this exhibit are astounding in their beauty and detail.
The show is huge–about 160 works (it must have cost a bundle to assemble). With such a wealth of material, it seems like an opportunity was lost in discussing more of the ethnographic, social and political issues suggested by the art–the 14-year-old brides (all blondes!); the arrival of dark hair with the Medicis. Oh, I know, it’s probably all in the catalog. In all truth, once I got done with the improvements in portraiture techniques, the social issues were what really interested me–that and all those beautiful portrayals of people who look so real they could be us.

The portrait show at the Met goes to March 18.

The Tenement Museum

Slide of life on the Lower East Side from www.tenement.org/

Speaking of people who could be us, the other highlight of our trip was a visit to the Tenement Museum on the Lower East Side. We got to visit a 19th century structure, which over the course of its use housed about 7,000 people. We visited two apartments in the building, recreations that told the story of the people who lived there (during two separate eras). I was able to imagine myself in both eras and both kinds of lives, thanks to the wonderful presentation by our docent. Best of all, we got to see pictures of the descendants of those two families. Total feel-good melting pot American Dream experience!

And these days, the Lower East Side is chock-a-block with contemporary art galleries and little cafes. It has a West Philly vibe.

Warren Angle died Friday
We are sad to bring you the news that Warren Angle passed away on Friday, September 9 after a long battle with cancer. Angle, an artist, was the exhibitions director of the Fleisher Art Memorial for many years. He will certainly be missed by many.  There’s a Facebook page set up as a memorial for Warren.

John Vick is juror for New Wilmington Art Association show

Kim Faler, "Slack Tide", 2011, latex paint, paper, wood, clothing and bananas, dimensions variable. Photo courtesy of the artist.

Former artblog writer and co-founder of Art Workers Resource Group John Vick was the juror for the New Wilmington Art Association‘s current show RSVP 2011. The exhibit showcases 20 artists in a variety of mediums and runs from First Friday, September 9 to October 20.

Print Center hosts lecture by Wooster Collective founders
There is a lot going on these days at The Print Center. Of particular interest is the upcoming lecture by NYC’s Wooster Collective co-founders Marc and Sara Schiller. The topic of the lecture is the complex and controversial relationship between street art and graphic design/marketing. The free lecture takes place on October 14 at 6 PM.

Temple presents 9/11 Moments of Silence
Throughout September the Temple Gallery will be filled with recorded moments of silence from public and private events in commemoration of September 11, 2001. Gathered from newsreels, libraries, and the internet, these moments express a nation’s quiet remembrance and solidarity.

CofFREE Mondays at Temple
The Temple Gallery is also holding CofFREE Mondays starting September 12. Stop by the gallery from 7:45 – 9:45 AM for free coffee and the lowdown on cultural events at the university and around the city. Special guest lectures will also be on the agenda from time to time.

Opposites Attract at UArts

The Blind Tongue by James Fuhrman and Mark Warhol.

Starting September 6 as part of the Philadelphia Sculptor’s exhibit Opposites Attract: Collaborative Installations at University of the Arts, sculptor James Fuhrman and composer Mark Warhol present “The Blind Tongue”, a sculptural installation with video projections of an opera performance. The exhibition will be on display through October 13.

New online publication Hidden City Daily launches

Hidden City Daily, a new Philadelphia arts and culture publication affiliated with Thadeus Squire’s Hidden City project, has just gotten underway. They have a lot of picture-rich coverage of arts and culture and info on some of the more off-the-beaten-track locales around the city. One of the co-editors, Nathaniel Popkin, says the Hidden City Daily is geared up to be a hub of informed, reflective and innovative thinking about the city. It will be very interesting to see how Hidden City progresses in the near future.

Michael Rees lecture at Haverford College
Artist Michael Rees will hold a lecture on September 26 from 4:30 – 6 PM at Haverford College. Rees operates at the intersection of biology, art, and 3D rendering and will be hosting a workshop earlier in the day. If you have an interest in 3D art, sculpture, or contemporary art, this is definitely worth checking out!

Madelyn Roehrig Conversations with Andy

Madelyn Roehrig, Conversations with Andy.

For the past two years friend of Libby and Roberta’s, Madelyn Roehrig, has been videotaping individuals visiting the tombstone of Andy Warhol. Her project will be part of Pittsburgh’s Biennial at the Warhol Museum opening Sept-17 and running to Jan 8, 2012.  Also in the show are photos by LaToya Ruby Frazier and work by Dara Birnbaum. So far Roehrig has taped over 200 individuals with a range of insights and whimsical observations. Follow her project “Figments: Conversations with Andy” on its Facebook page.

Sprint 3D video
It may be a commercial for a phone company, but it’s also pretty fantastical! Check out Sprint’s recent 3D “flash art” video (or in 2D) in which park goers get accosted by  swarms of massive bubbles.

Met finds its funny bone

The Head Ache, a print after George Cruikshank by Enrique Chagoya.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art will be display works of humor, satire, and caricature in its newest show Infinite Jest. Works range from the Italian Renaissance to present day and offer a wide spectrum of satirical and comical work. The exhibition starts on September 13 and runs until March, so you have plenty of time to catch a few laughs.  One of the featured works is Enrique Chagoya’s “The Head Ache,” a print made when the artist was in residence at the Rosenbach Museum and Library.

Freeman’s Auctioneers record sale
Freeman’s Auctioneers had a record sale of a Chinese imperial-style double dragon white jade seal for $3.5 million. This creates a record for the highest-selling single lot and most successful sale of the company.

Opportunities

There’s an opportunities page set up on the Bartol Foundation website announcing teaching opportunities available to teaching artists. A few groups are seeking requests for proposals and teachers. Check out the details here.

Artist News

Gabe Martinez, "Lemon", 2011, archival inkjet print, 30 x 30 inches (76 x 76 cm

Pew Fellow and UPenn factulty member Gabe Martinez has a show dealing with gay male sexual identity at Samsøn in Boston from September 9 – October 15.

Huston Ripley, "Untitled", 2008, # 8XL1: Ink on Japanese paper: 25" x 19"

Huston Ripley will be displaying drawings at the Adam Baumgold Gallery in New York from September 8 – October 8.

In July, the Woodmere Museum acquired one of Doug Witmer‘s 2008 paintings “How Soon is Too Soon?” for their permanent collection.

Three former Philadelphia area artists – Jesse Greenberg, Nick Paparone, and Walter Benjamin Smith – will have work at the Socrates Sculpture Park on Long Island. Paparone’s solo show also opened at Fleisher-Ollman on September 8.

Dave Kim‘s recently completed project My Best Friend Facebook Forever has a website called My Best Friend Facebook Forever. My BFFF was a month-long performance/experiment where Kim did everything he was asked to do via Facebook.

Julie Courtney and Jennie Shanker will soon be completing their collaborative curatorial project CENTERpieces, affiliated with the Center for Discovery in upstate New York. Stay-tuned for an upcoming event for artist Richard Torchia’s work in one of the center’s geodesic domes.

'Standing Female Figure Wearing a Strap and a Necklace' South Arabian(3rd-2nd millenium B.C.) sandstone, 27 x 14.3 x 14.3cm, MMA

I admit that until now, I too, had overlooked this Bronze Age beauty from the land of frankincense and myrrh (modern Yemen and Oman), dressed in something less than a bikini. This five thousand year old statue speaks of the essential role of fertility, and if she wasn’t used to invoke human fertility (those hips are certainly built for childbirth), she speaks of the association of female fertility with that of crops. Based on her weight, this figure would likely have been made to stand in a specific place, unlike the similarly-buxomVenus of Willendorf (now dated to 30,000-25,000 B.C.) in the  Naturhistorisches Museum, Vienna, which at 11 cm, fits perfectly in the palm of a hand.

We may never know much about this figure’s  function or meaning; objects from pre-literate cultures are largely questions without answers. Still, this small and restrained figure retains great power, even after five millenia. Viewers who admire Brancusi’s Kiss will be taken with the abstracted forms of her body that still clearly retain the initial shape of the stone; how much the carver did with so little.

Definitely worth the trip.

I was trying to figure out how to direct viewers to the figure. The Met’s rooms are numbered on the museum’s map, but if there were numbers in the galleries, they escaped me.  Then I realized that the room was adjacent to the gallery that leads to the great reliefs from Nimrud. I thought, how could I pass them over? I couldn’t. Flexibility is a virtue, so the initial One Work Worth the Trip includes two.

Reliefs from the palace at Nimrud, (c. 883-859 B.C.) gypsum alabaster, 92 1/4 x 92 x 4 1/2 in, MMA

Ashurnasirpal II (r. 883–859 B.C.)  was one of the dynasty of Assyrian kings who ruled the Middle East  from territory centered in Northern Iraq.  Above are two from a gallery at the MMA entirely surrounded by reliefs from the palace Ashurnasirpal II built at his new capital at Nimrud (which had been an outpost until his building campaign). The king is second from the right, performing a ritual with his attendants. Texts running across the figures describe the palace in the first person of the king, with comments such as: Beasts of the mountains and the seas, which I had fashioned out of white limestone and alabaster, I had set up in its gates. I made the palace fittingly imposing. The human-headed bull, below, and his double would have guarded a palace door.

Human-headed winged bull and winged lion (lamassu) from Nimrud (ca. 883–859 B.C.) gypsum alabaster,10'3 ½", MMA

The British Museum also has reliefs and guardian figures from Ashurnasirpal’s palace, and from those of later Assyrian kings. The museum’s website is a great resource for background information on Assyrian history, culture, and artifacts; part of the site is billed as The ultimate guide to the Ancient Near East on the Internet. I have no way of testing that claim.

Relief from the palace at Nimrud, (c. 883-859 B.C.), gypsum alabaster, British Museum, London

The reliefs in London attract a lot of attention, so it’s a mystery to me that those in New York are ignored. I spoke with a guard about it (he was an illustrator himself, and paid attention); he said no one spent much time looking at the reliefs, but people did use them as a site for taking photographs. Art as photo op will be the subject of a later post.

If the visual expression of power is of interest, I think the Assyrians beat anything done by the Egyptians. They fully understood the political significance of imagery. I find that these reliefs invoke the aspirations of real absolute rulers – their accomplishments, violence, self-promotion  and tyranny. Which can’t help reminding me of  Shelley’s great meditation on such images of power, Ozymandias:

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!’
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away”.

If you’re wondering why would I want to see portraits of people I know nothing about? think about Chuck Close, or a photographer such as Katy Grannan, whose portraits of anonymous street people are on view in the gallery across the hall from the pastels exhibition.

A storage box of pastel crayons, MMA

Pastels were overwhelmingly employed for portraiture, and you’ll understand why when you’ve seen the quality they can produce of perfectly powdered skin, as clear and lifelike as the re-touched photographs in Vogue. They were usually done on paper attached to canvas, glazed (covered with glass, for protection), framed, and hung as paintings were; and they were an equivalent size, which sometimes meant using multiple sheets of paper.

Jean-Étienne Liotard ‘Portrait of Archduchess Marie Antoinette’ (1762) pastel , 311 x 249 mm, Musée d'art et d'histoire, Geneva

There’s a wonderful introduction to the medium in the form of photographs of the manufacture of pastel crayons, a storage box filled with a range of colors (above, cushioned on beds of bran; that’s an idea for a green packing material) and an example of a support of paper tacked to canvas.  There’s also a delightful mahogany painter’s table (c. 1810-20) with storage for both pastels and oil paints (in the bladders which preceded collapsible tubes);  its claw feet are on wheels, for ease of movement.

Hugh Douglas Hamilton ‘Portrait of Antonio Canova’ pastel, 9.8 x 8.1"

Forty works on view are by French, Italian, English, German, Swiss and American artists. In the case of work by Elizabeth Vigée Lebrun (below) and John Singleton Copley, a short walk through the MMA will allow you to compare their portraits in pastel with their painted portraits.  Several pastels by Maurice Quentin de La Tour were purposely not brought to the high finish characteristic of the genre. He used the term préparation to distinguish them, and they give a good idea of the layering involved in the fully-colored and highly finished works typical of18th century pastel technique where the colors were so seamlessly applied that they look almost photographic.

Elizabeth Vigée Lebrun ‘Self Portrait’ (1789) pastel, MMA

Do save time for the third gallery, which contains my favorites: the portrait of the sculptor, Canova (above), by his friend, Hugh Douglas Hamilton (the only profile portrait in the exhibition; it reminds me of Ingres’ drawings of his artistic cohort in Rome, which were ever so much livelier than his bread-and-butter portraits of English tourists) and Pierre-Paul Prud’hon’s of Nicholas Perchet below), not seamlessly finished but arresting, and the visible indications of its facture appeal to a modernist sensibility. There’s also a fascinating grisaille of a boy reading, by Joseph Wright of Derby, which conveys the quality of artificial light that was Wright of Darby’s specialty.

Pierre-Paul Prud’hon ‘Portrait of Nicholas Perchet’ (1795) pastel, (15 3/4 x 12 3/16"), Prunceton U. Art Museum

These portraits will expand your idea of the virtuosity possible with pastels and provide a good background for the very different approach to pastels by late 19th Century avant garde artists, such as Degas, Toulouse-Lautrec, and others.

Given the importance of music in our everyday life and our cultural obsession with musicians, we tend to know little about the often exquisite tools of music making. Two recent experiences shed light on the overlooked history and craft methods of America’s quintessential instrument, the guitar— a trip to the C.F. Martin Guitar Factory, and to the Met’s current exhibition “Guitar Heroes”.

Two happy visitors to the Martin Guitar Factory (Philly musicians Andy Defrance of (former) Catholic Block, and Andy Schulz of Wigwams)

My trip, or shall I say pilgrimage, to the Martin Guitar Factory was greatly influenced by my company—two local Philly musicians and lifelong guitar fanatics, whose excitement mounted as we got closer to our mecca: the appropriately biblical, Nazareth, PA. While the original factory still stands, tours are now lead in the snazzy new facility about a mile away, a site that attracts visitors from far and wide to toss around these prized instruments and watch them take form piece by piece. The tour began in the buzzing and whirring artisan chambers, with receding vistas of hanging guitar bodies, rows of gleaming polished necks, the graceful curves of custom jigs and the chatting and laughter of the artisans (who would occasionally flip over whatever they were toiling with and strum a little tune) and their Johnny Cash and Dylan-adorned work stations. Unlike in other factory situations, these workers seemed not only happy, but obsessed with their work.

Wood varieties used in making Martin guitars

While the tour appropriately focused on the history of C.F. Martin—a German emigrant who first started his business New York in 1833, bartering his earliest products for cases of wine, and later resettling in Pennsylvania in 1839—it also illuminated more general details about the history of guitar making in the US. Many early American guitar builders were of German descent, and lutherie, the craft of building of string instruments, was actually an outcropping of the cabinet building industry.

In Europe, back in the days when guilds ruled most creative enterprise, the Violin Maker’s Guild — seeking to limit competition — banned members of other guilds (such as the Cabinet Maker’s Guild) from producing musical instruments, an argument rooted in the distinction between the art of instrument building and the mere mechanics of furniture building. This tension caused many instrument builders to disperse, most notably to Italy where well-crafted instruments were in high demand, but also as far as America.

Custom jig for shaping guitar necks at the Martin factory

C.F. Martin, son of cabinetmaker and the supposed “inventor of guitars” Georg Martin, emigrated after too much frustration trying to deal with testy guild restrictions. The tour included tales from this early history, but also highlighted modern innovations: a line of guitars built from sustainably harvested and scrap woods, for instance, as well as mesmerizing robotic polishers. But beyond the mechanization of some preliminary and final steps in the building process, the methods at Martin remain remarkably similar to those used in C.F.’s days. The guitars, which are mostly acoustic, are still predominantly hand-built, requiring over 300 steps and six months to produce. Martin’s 600+ workers (referred to at the factory as “artisans”) are taught the entirety of the building process before specializing in one particular step. Consumers, which include famous musicians and discerning amateurs alike, still value Martin’s classically designed 6 and 12-string guitars (and ukuleles), finding in their traditional build the possibility for new sound.

Italian guitar from ca. 1800, inlaid with ebony, ivory and tortoiseshell at "Guitar Heroes"

While the Martin Factory, which produced its millionth guitar in 2004, gives a view into a more standardized, mass-produced (albeit handmade) product, the Met’s “Guitar Heroes” sheds light on the work of three 20th century craftsmen renowned for their highly personal, artistic designs and innovations: John D’Angelico (1905-1964), James D’Aquisto (1935-95) and John Monteleone (born 1947). These three Italian American artisans worked in and around New York to craft acoustic and electric jazz beauties of particular aesthetic and sonic originality—sought after by musicians such as Paul Simon and Chet Adkins.

John D'Angelico electric mandolin shaped like a rifle

The show situated these three makers in a context specific to Italian instrument producers, and began with a description of the 1562 Guild of Luthiers in Bavaria and their eventual takeover of the Italian instrument industry. Among several outstanding examples of painfully intricate early instruments adorned with inlaid pearl and tortoiseshell was the austere guitar of famous violinmaker Antonio Stradivari—one of only four known ever to have been made.

While this show lacked the hands-on, mechanical component of a visit to a live-production factory, its attention to historical detail made clear the relationship between the innovation in instrument, and in music itself. Both the Martin Factory and the Met show hammered home that behind every skilled musical artist is a skilled craftsperson, or let’s just say artist: the person who wrought the perfect tool to create the perfect music.

To round out this experience in guitar history and craft, visit MoMA’s exhibition of Picasso’s guitar-inspired paintings, collages and sculptures—sure to add another level of insight into the impact that these beautiful handmade creations have had on musicians and non-musicians alike.

Tours are conducted Monday-Friday at the Martin Guitar Factory, Nazareth, PA

“Guitar Heroes: Legendary Craftsmen From Italy to New York”, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, through July 4

“Picasso: Guitars 1912–1914”, at the Museum of Modern Art, through June 6

Carsten Höller’s installation (2007), Tate Modern Turbine Hall (detail below)

Jenny Holzer’s Guggenheim Museum installation (1990)

The lobby of the National Gallery of Art’s  East Wing is on the scale of an airport, and consequently mostly displays art commissioned for it, (a Calder mobile and Motherwell painting, below) whose gigantism does not reveal the artists at their best. The Victoria and Albert Museum commissioned their own oversized chandelier from Dale Chihuly; it’s not to my taste, but the scale is right, and is probably an appropriate message for a museum of decorative arts. The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s  lobby features flowers, for which they have a dedicated endowment; they are the biggest arrangements I’ve ever seen, and spectacularly effective because of their scale (and the florist’s great skill), although I’m certain that museum staff would rather the funds were available for other purposes.

National Gallery of Art, East Wing atrium

Dale Chihuly chandelier (2000), Victoria and Albert Museum lobby

Then there’s the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). John Yau wrote an article in 1988, Please Wait by the Coatroom; Wifredo Lam in the Museum of Modern Art, about MoMA’s choice to hang Lam’s masterpiece, The Jungle, in the lobby on the way to the coatroom (this was before Tanaguchi’s addition). Yau’s point was that MoMA had no place for an Afro-Cuban artist in its Euro-centric history of Modernism. Well, thanks to Patricia Phelps de Cisneros’ money and influence, Lam and his Latin American colleagues are much more in evidence in MoMA’s current collection galleries; but Lam’s painting in MoMA’s lobby reveals one consideration in choosing Lobby Art: the work’s safety. The Lam could be hung in the lobby because it was under glass, and large as it was, it was glazed because it was painted on paper, since large canvas was unavailable in Havana during WWII.  At one point the museum replaced the Lam with a large Milton Avery, which looked dreadful behind glass (or was it plexi?).

On one wall of MoMA’s current lobby paintings are hung very high above the information desk, which obviates the problem of glass. The paintings are seen from quite a distance, however, which seems to be a major factor in their selection: they need wall presence.

Ellsworth Kelly in MoMA's lobby

James Rosenquist in MoMA’s lobby

The lower-ceilinged 53rd St. entrance to MoMA’s lobby currently features considerably more imaginative solutions to the choice of Lobby Art. The bank of video monitors above the ticket desk, which usually features information on current exhibitions and programs, has been given over to Arturo Herrera’s series of video drawings, which are part of the fantastic exhibition on the 6th floor, On Line; Drawing through the 20th Century. Exhibiting time-based art on the monitors is a particularly inspired choice, so that visitors on line (no pun on the exhibition title intended) can make productive use of their wait. I hope the museum considers using the monitors for art on a regular basis.

Arturo Herrera 'Walk/14 parts' (2009) digital images derived from ink on paper drawings in MoMA’s lobby

Across from the ticket counter, behind and beside the rare bit of seating that MoMA offers, is a two-part installation by Paula Hayes, Nocturn of the Limax Maximus (on view through Feb. 28, 2011). It consists of a horizontal wall-hung piece (the Slug) and a free-standing, vertical form (the Egg), both of which house rather magical, miniature gardens. Most of the lobby visitors rushed by, but for those who stopped it offered the fascination of actual nature, captured and displaced within MoMA’s temple of culture.

Paula Hayes 'Nocturn of the Limax Maximus', cast acrylic, blown glass, full-spectrum light and tropical plants, MoMA

Paula Hayes 'Nocturn of the Limax Maximus' photo by Teo Camporeale

Each terrarium has its own lighting (full-spectrum grow lights), which creates a luminous glow that beacons to the viewer, giving the impression that they might be alien environments come for a brief visit before returning to outer space.  I could look at plants all day, and the minuscule size of Hayes’ specimens – the tiniest ivies and begonias I’ve ever seen – fascinated me, as did the question of how she created sufficient ambient moisture in the horizontal Slug, which is entirely open at the front.

Paula Hayes 'Nocturn of the Limax Maximus' ; l. 'Slug', r. 'Egg' photo by Teo Camporeale

Hays chose the work’s title Limax Maximus, the proper name of a garden slug, after seeing a video of amorous slugs on YouTube. That reminds me of one of the best bits of filmed erotica I’ve ever seen: in Microcosmos (1996, the film was recommended to me by an artist friend), where the fully-depicted sex involved two tender and sticky snails. If any slugs lurked in Hayes’ lobby vitrines, they’d have been invisible to the naked eye. The installation, organized by Ann Temkin, is a rare treat and quite a stretch for MoMA. The fact that it’s accessible to a broad public in no way diminishes its interest.

Robert Frank, U.S. 285, New Mexico (1955) gelatin silver print, image: 13 1/4 x 8 5/8 in., Mark Kelman, New York, photograph © Robert Frank

It emphasized the necessity of art to present a complex and unresolved picture in place of the one-line pitch provided by the commercial world.  In Cold War America of the 50s and well into the 60s everyone was blond, smiling  and beautiful; it seemed the entire country, as in Lake Woebegon, was above average.

The National Gallery of Art is showing Looking In; Robert Frank’s “The Americans” through April 26, before it moves to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (May 17-August 23) and the Metropolitan Museum of Art (September 22-December 27, 2009). The exhibition traces the background of The Americans in Frank’s previous books and series of images as well as books of photographs by his mentors and contemporaries.  It includes numerous contact sheets from the 767 rolls of film Frank shot and then culled to the 83 images in The Americans, mock-ups of his collages of images that were part of his editing process and correspondence with the Guggenheim Foundation (which funded his photographic project), Jack Kerouac (whom Frank asked to write an introduction to the book) and others connected with the project. The exhibition makes plain the enormous work and calculation behind The Americans’s seeming artlessness.

Robert Frank Elevator - Miami Beach (1955) gelatin silver print, image: 12 3/8 x 18 3/16 in., Philadelphia Museum of Art, Purchased with funds contributed by Dorothy Norman, 1969, photograph © Robert Frank

Indeed it may be hard for younger viewers to realize the novelty of Frank’s work, so thoroughly have his lessons been assimilated.  Frank went for the ordinary and avoided the picturesque or photogenic. He retained the homely details that were cropped or air-brushed out of commercial photographs: a woman’s chipped and dirty fingernails, the tangle of cords in a television studio, a clutter of signs in the landscape. He included both over and under-lit images and odd camera angles to imply the un-studiedness, and hence truthfulness, of his work.

Robert Frank, Los Angeles (1955-56) gelatin silver print, image and sheet: 18 7/8 x 12 1/2 in., Susan and Peter MacGill, photograph © Robert Frank

Frank was a poet of the nocturnal, both outdoors and under harsh, indoor lighting. He enjoyed scenes that were unlikely, as well as unknown in his European experience: a cowboy in Western hat and boots in New York City, drive-in movies, religious expressions on the rear windshields and bumpers of cars, racial segregation, the prevalence of commercial signage and automobiles, lots of automobiles. If Frank was ever invited into an American home he left his camera behind. He showed Americans in public, both alone and in crowds. And Frank was a self-conscious witness; in San Francisco he showed a couple from behind, relaxing on the grass, the man looking over his shoulder and glowering at the photographer whose presence impinges on them.

Robert Frank, San Francisco (1956) gelatin silver print, image: 13 3/4 x 10 1/16 in., private collection, photograph © Robert Frank, from "The Americans"

The Americans was a product of one of the mid-century’s classic road trips, but Frank’s roads lead to death (Car Accident – U.S. 66, between Winslow and Flagstaff, Arizona, 1955, Crosses on scene of highway accident – U.S. 91, Idaho, 1956), desolation (Santa Fe, New Mexico, 1955)  and religion (St. Francis, gas station, and City Hall – Los Angeles, 1956) as well as discovery and escape; it was as conscious a narrative as the various books and films of the genre.  The work was first published in France in 1959 (with texts that were not of Frank’s choosing) then in 1960 by Grove Press, with Kerouac’s introduction, and multiple times since; numerous editions are included in the exhibition.  The curator, Sarah Greenough, is clear that she is showing rarely exhibited vintage prints – an imposition of market and museum values on a series of photographs that were intended for reproduction.  I could distinguism more variation among the printed editions  (the 1969 MoMA edition pushed the contrast so that the pictures have an entirely different impression) than I could between the earlier and later prints of the photographs. The National Gallery’s reproductions in its catalog are tritones and certainly superior to all previous versions.  The comprehensive catalog (ISBN 978-3-86521748-6) is available in an expanded, hardcover edition (ISBN 978-3-86521-806-3 – distributed by D.A.P.) that includes all of Frank’s contact sheets for The Americans, a comparative sequencing for published editions, further correspondence, a map and chronology. Both versions are extraordinarily beautifully designed by Margaret Bauer. The catalog gives this body of work the documentation and anaylsis it certainly deserves.