Andrea writes about the pioneering light artist, Thomas Wilfred, whose use of electricity and projected light in the early 20th Century was an influence on artists of later eras, including James Turrell. Wilfred’s works were on view recently at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in a show (closed Jan. 7) organized by Yale University Art Gallery. The works are difficult to conserve and that may explain why the artist fell out of circulation, as his works sat in storage waiting for tune-ups or fixes. The Museum of Modern Art owns one of Wilfred’s seminal works and Andrea thinks MoMA should bring the piece back for a new audience.
Read MoreAndrea shepherds us to the French coastal town Dunkerque to review the exhibition at Lieu d’Art et Action Contemporaine (LAAC) organized by composer and musicologist Jean-Yves Bosseur. She writes, “While tracing familiar territory, it offered a broad view of the subject and a number of surprises with artists, both earlier and contemporary, who were new to me….This exhibition succeeded with a challenge that faces many museums today: how to present work and ideas that stimulate a knowledgeable audience while offering something for a more general public which may not be familiar with contemporary art.”
Read MoreAfter fifty years is “Zen for Film” an experience, an object, a projection, or a relic? Holling examines the early history of the work, contemporaneous artworks that raised similar questions, and protocols for institutions that would borrow and exhibit examples from various public collections. Some of Holling’s questions are now being answered by the artist’s estate, museums, and film archives–and they offer inconsistent answers. “Zen for Film,” whose subject is entirely bound with its materiality, raises particularly complex questions, and Holling is thoughtful, dogged, and modest in searching for answers. Her examination raises points common to enough 20th- and 21st-century works that art historians concerned with the record as well as curators and conservators tasked with exhibiting and caring for them will have to acknowledge them.
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