This sumptuous and scholarly book will be welcomed by everyone interested in Degas’ work or in nineteenth-century sculpture, as well as by artists interested in bronze casting.  It is highly unusual for collection catalogs to be of interest, other than to researchers; however, the National Gallery of Art owns 52 of the 69 original works in wax, clay and plaster that survived from Degas’ studio, as well as eleven bronze casts, making it the touchstone for understanding Degas’ sculpture.

Edgar Degas ‘Arabesque over the Right Leg, Left Arm in Front’ wax, NGA

Research on the catalog was the result of a decade-long collaboration among an art historian, two conservators and three scientists. They have made a major contribution to understanding of Degas’ sculptural thinking and his technique in modeling wax and various clays over armatures which he made himself, and have precisely identified materials of each of the wax and clay originals as well as the alloys of a number of the bronzes.  The computer models used to study the relationship between the original waxes, the bronze modèls and the ultimate bronze casts are illustrated, as are radiographs which reveal the armature for each work in the catalog. The process of bronze casting is illustrated with step-by-step diagrams, as is the process of casting one of the plasters.

Suzanne Lindsay situates Degas’ sculpture within his career and its posthumous history. Each of the entries includes technical information and many have art historical discussions. Lindsay’s substantial entry on the wax original of The Little Fourteen-Year-Old Dancer could stand alone as an article, covering the figure’s pose, costume, iconography, formal context, history, and reception, as well as its original condition. The volume is beautifully illustrated, including many details and comparative works, and includes a glossary of technical terms and a bibliography.

Edgar Degas ‘Little Dancer Aged Fourteen,’ original wax with mixed media,, NGA

Degas exhibited only a single sculpture, the wax Little Dancer Aged Fourteen, and had none of them cast in bronze. Since he left no instructions, it has long been debated whether his heirs’ decision to authorize editions of posthumous casts was consistent with the artist’s intention. But the importance of the sculpture itself is unquestionable, and this is a fitting documentation of one of the great bodies of nineteenth-century art.

Two more modest books that might be of particular interest to artists:

Lapdogs of the Bourgeoisie; Class Hegemony in Contemporary Art Nav Haq and Tirdad Zolghadr eds., contributions by Charlotte Bydler, Neil Cummings, Annika Eriksson, Chris Evans, Liam Gillick, Nav Haq, San Keller, Hassan Khan, Erden Kosova, Dr. Suhail Malik, Marion von Osten, Natascha Sadr Haghighian, Dr. Malcolm Quinn, Tirdad Zolghadr (Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2009) ISBN ISBN 978-1-933128-88-7

Lapdogs of the Bourgeoisie is a publication following, and partially documenting, a series of exhibitions and performances that began in an alternative space in London, Gasworks, and traveled to Istanbul, Stockholm, Cairo, and Bristol from 2006-09.  According to the editors, The initial, overarching question was something along the lines of How exactly does “class” play a role in the production, direction, criticality, and dissemination of contemporary art? In fact, the questions about class they explored center predominantly on power, rather than equally class-bound questions of taste.

The book consists of essays, performance scripts, a self-evaluation, The Solo Show Test by Seda Naiumad; photo-essays, including San Keller’s photographic series showing artists’ works situated in their parents’ homes (above) — not quite Louise Lawler, despite the parallels; A [Hacked] Hacker Manifesto [version 5.1:transitional version] McKenzie Wark by Neil Cummings; and a conversation among participants. Some idea of the project’s tenor can be found in the glossary, which lists Art Habitus as A professional body that is created to recruit students for higher art education, usually made up of white, middle-class, local males (with the occasional German predominant). Fluent English is required, as well as much previous experience and entrepreneurship. There is, however, no required reading.

The writers and participants are well-read, critically up-to-date, and unusually willing to look in the mirror when asking questions about class.  Most of them dish up their satire with clarity, and often humor.  Here is Seda Naiumad from Sketch for the Essay “Certitudo Sui”:

Whether you’re a bourgeoise student, a same-sex family, or an overeducated housewife; when you peruse the nametags and the work descriptions; when you swish down the hermeneutic vortex of a Carsten Höller slide, squealing like a poked piglet; or when you appreciate the guest curator’s institutional critique with a complicit smile of mischief on your lips, discuss it over fair trade coffee in the museum café, and then purchase two catalogs on your way out– one as a Christmas gift, one for your bookshelf; this is when you become a beautifully proactive part of the scenario.

This is a welcome collection of work and writing which once again demonstrates that residents of art capitals have no monopoly on  smarts.

Rob Hamelijnck, Front Desk/ Back Office; The secret world of galleries in 39 pictures and two texts (Rotterdam: Fucking Good Art and post editions, 2010) ISBN 978 94 6083 031 0

Front Desk/Back Office is an artist’s book of photos of just that: the reception areas and hidden sanctums of a group of galleries in Amsterdam, Berlin, Copenhagen, Hamburg, Sao Paolo and Zurich – taken mostly without the galleries’ permissions. It’s visual fodder for a sociology of the art trade, with the reader left to draw any conclusions.  The book has two (different) front covers, printed upside down in relation to one another. One opens to the photographs, the other reveals a title page and two short essays by architect, Thibaut de Ruyter, and sociologist, Olav Velthuis.  This small volume might fit as another chapter in Lapdogs, examining class as manifest in the interior decoration of commercial art spaces.

The Marvelous Museum: Orphans, Curiosities & Treasures: A Mark Dion Project (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2010) ISBN 978-0811874519

This tome is part of a project by Mark Dion at the Oakland Museum (Sept. 11, 2010 – March 6, 2011), which had just re-installed its gallery of California art and was undergoing institution-wide self-scrutiny. The Oakland Museum is the result of merging three civic museums, one devoted to art, another to natural history and the third to cultural history – all focusing on California.  As all serious, collecting museums must, the Oakland Museum was questioning the objects in its collection that did not accord with the museum’s mission.

Mark Dion, one might say, is a museum’s artist. That is – he is much appreciated by museum professionals for the seriousness and sophistication he brings to questions of what museums collect, how they characterize, store and display their collections, and why. So rather than focus on the newly-installed works, he addressed the left-overs and rejects, those objects that remained, unseen, in the store rooms.  The book is a wonderful object, contained in an over-sized box, with a tromp l’oeil cover that convincingly impersonates a wooden collection case. Opening the box recreates some of Dion’s exploration and discovery of the museum’s contents. An old-fashioned, museum collection label on the box states:  The Marvelous Museum is comprised of one (1) clamshell box containing seven (7) object identification cards and one (1) hardcover book with jacket, vellum envelopes, and seven (7) additional cards inserted in said envelopes.  Its description further states: Explores institutional collecting, sorting, categorization, and cultural analysis…Includes text and visual contributions by D. Graham Burnett, Rene de Guzman, Andrew Leland, David Maisel, Marina McDougall, Rebecca Solnit, and Lawrence Wechsler, among others.
The most valuable characteristics Dion brings to his museum investigations are his endless curiosity and his sense of wonder – which he shares with the book’s readers: were the instruments, carefully fitted into a suitcase, acquired as curator’s tools or collection objects? why did someone save the keys, many, but not all, labeled, to doors and cabinets that no longer exist? where would a taxidermied elephant be moved that would require a packing crate? wouldn’t it be fun to see the two pair of deer antlers intwined in death struggle that the museum de-accessioned in 1969 for $12.50?

All of this makes one ponder the range of oddities that reside in other museum collections. The strangest one I can recall is the world’s largest hairball, preserved for eternity and on display, when I visited the Michigan State University Museum; it was presumably a relic of the university’s agriculture school. This book will surely delight anyone who spends lots of time in museum galleries or store-rooms and retains a curiosity about both the jewels and dross one finds there.

Attack on Matisse at National Gallery highlights art security
After a recent attack on a Matisse painting at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, art security is on the minds of writers at the Washington Post.  That publication ran two stories recently about art security issues.

The artwork at the center of the most recent stir: Henri Matisse's "The Plumed Hat", 1919.

One article in the Post reports that the Matisse vandal had just been released from a hospital and was charged only four-and-a-half months ago with tearing a Gauguin painting off of a gallery wall. The paper also ran another story about an emergency preparedness container for saving important artworks in case of an emergency.

artblog’s museum studies guru, Andrea Kirsh, says that disaster plans are one of a number of planning and operational documents that all museums should have, although some small institutions may lack current disaster plans or other policy documents. For those who want to research this issue, Andrea passes on these links from the Northeast Document Conservation Center and Hertiage Preservation,  which include information on funding available for disaster planning.

O.U.R. Gallery and Studios in Port Richmond

O.U.R. Gallery

Port Richmond’s newest gallery O.U.R.(which opened back in February) opens a show September 10, “Figuratively Elsewhere,” which features artists Richard Metz, David Ferro, and Mikel Elam.
The show will be up until October 2.

O.U.R. is open to proposals for future shows. If you’re interested, email Melissa Purnell at mkpurnell2002@yahoo.com or contact the gallery through their Facebook page.

Bambi Gallery returns for a curated show at Crane Arts

The first show by Bambi’s Candace Karch since the little gallery with heart closed its space in the Piazza last February opens Sept 7 at Crane Arts. “Hold”, sponsored by InLiquid funs to Oct. 20. The show is an installation that deals with the desire to keep stuff.

Libby and Roberta voted Creative Connectors!
Roberta and Libby have been voted one of 76 Philadelphians who are Creative Connectors in LEADERSHIP Philadelphia‘s Connector Project. They were selected from over 3,200 nominees. The idea is that these “Connectors” are the glue that holds the creative community together; they grab hold of a concept and spread it around, acting as a trusted resource.

Art in Odd Places 2011
The Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts will be participating in this year’s Art in Odd Places (AiOP) Festival. This annual gathering on West 14th Street in New York City is all about exploring the odd, ordinary, and ingenious in everyday life. “Ritual” is the theme this year including ideas of ceremony, obsession, myth, and superstition. AiOP will run from October 1-10 from Avenue C to the Hudson River. Jacolby Satterwhite, Pennsylvania native and recent UPenn graduate is among the 60 artists participating.

Opportunities

PenTales along with The European are holding The Connected Contest – but the deadline is soon: August 31! Write up to 5,000 characters (that’s around 800 words) in English (or German, all you German speakers out there) on the topic of being connected. Any writers, techies, creative individuals, or social media users are welcome. Send submissions to loewenstein@theeuropean.de – subject “Connected Contest” – for a chance to have your piece reviewed and shared in those publications.

The National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts will be hosting an emerging and student artist show at their conference in Seattle. The deadlines and rules are different for each category, but the deadline for the emerging artists category is August 30. For the student artists, the deadline is September 29. The conference is in March, 2012.

Live in NYC? Moving there? The Bronx Musuem is holding Artists in the Marketplace 32, a collaborative residency in which emerging artists can work directly with established artists, curators, and professionals before a culminating biennial exhibition in 2013. The deadline is September 5.

Artist News

Zoe Strauss is having an open studio this Saturday, Aug. 20, one day only – the last one before her big PMA show. There will be $5 copies of the remaining photos from her I-95 exhibition, and the artist will be snapping Polaroid portraits (ala Andy Warhol), for $5 as well. Stop by her studio at 838 Cantrell Street on Saturday, August 20 from Noon til 2 PM.  Snacks and air conditioning free.

Talia Greene has a number of shows coming up this fall. By date of opening: September 8 group show at The Print Center in Philly, September 13 exhibition at Wave Hill in the Bronx, and some site-specific installations at Flashpoint in D.C. on September 30.

Mark Skwarek, whose Augmented Reality project id featured at Little Berlin this month, has an AR project right now in Korea, a project that uses digital image manipulation to envision a unified Korea.

Tyler Held, "Cross-Culture", 2010.

Recent UArts grad Tyler Held is in a group show at Tyler School of Art opening August 29. From February 27, 2011 – June 24, 2012 he will be part of Contraption at Delaware Center for the Contemporary Arts.

artblog international correspondent Matthew Rose has a solo show “God & Country” opening September 1 at Storie in Paris.

Nam June Paik One Candle, Candle Projection (1988-2000) candle, candle monitoring device, closed circuit camera, projectors, distribution amplifier, and 5" color monitor, Nam June Paik Estate © Nam June Paik Studios

One Candle, Candle Projection is a great piece that summarizes the contemplative aspect of Paik’s work. The Tower Gallery has been darkened, and because of its proportions – a sort of torqued cube – it has the feel of a chapel.  A single, lit candle, it’s flame flickering, burns before a video camera which projects it’s enlarged and refracted image across three walls of the room, in real time. I felt as though I was in a memorial for the artist, with whom I worked on a project years ago, and for two other friends deeply involved with art. It didn’t evoke sadness, just gratitude, for having known them  and for all they helped me to see and understand. One Candle reflects Nam June’s serious playfulness, asking us what we are looking at when we watch images on video and what relationship they bear to their subjects, chiding us for expecting lots of action on the small screen, and demonstraing that sometimes, very little is enough. The piece is about time, so inevitably about death, and illusion, circularity and repetition (a new candle is lit by gallery staff daily).  This is a work that cannot be captured with words; it must be experienced. You’ll have the opportunity through October 2.

Paul Gauguin ‘Self-Portrait Vase in the Form of a Severed Head’ (1889) stoneware, h. 19 5/16" Danish Museum of Art and Design, Copenhagen

Gauguin, Maker of Myth, (through June 5th; it was organized by Tate, where it was much larger) is also at the National Gallery of Art; it looks at the artist through the lens of his exaggerations, storytelling, fables and myths. It begins with his self-fashioning as Paul Gauguin, artist and social outsider, a natural savage of indigenous, Peruvian descent, who traveled to find traces of the last, unspoiled communities on Earth. In fact he had lead a thoroughly bourgeois life, supporting his wife and family as a stockbroker. His Peruvian ancestors had been Spanish colonials, and when visiting Tahiti and the Marquesas, he found societies significantly affected by Europeans over more than a century of global trading.

Paul Gauguin ‘Two Children’ (c. 1889) oil on canvas, 18 1/8 x 23 5/8" Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen

While not attempting to be a retrospective, the exhibition includes Gauguin’s work done throughout his career and in all genres: portraiture, still life, landscape, history painting (in the form of religious narratives) and genre scenes.  What will be most significant, for viewers not thoroughly familiar with Gauguin’s work, are the large number of prints and sculptures (in ceramic and wood, including a stunning ceramic self-portrait in the form of a severed head, above, and the carved door-surround of his house in the Marquesas); they parallel the subjects of his paintings and were even more radical.  If the National Gallery of Art, which has lent a significant portion of the work on view, returns the sculpture to the tucked-away, first-floor galleries and the paintings to the galleries upstairs, it will be throwing away the chance to show the artist at his most complex and interesting.  There are absolutely wonderful works on view, including significant loans from obscure collections (in Newcastle upon Tyne, Vaulaines-sur-Seine, Frederikssund and Okayama, among others).  The exhibition will reward all visitors, regardless of their prior knowledge of Gauguin’s work.

Paul Gauguin ‘Oviri’ (1894) stoneware h. 28 3/4" Musée d'Orsay, Paris © Photo Credit: Réunion des Musées Nationaux

Blinky Palermo ‘Coney Island II’ (1975). Collection Ströher, Darmstadt. © 2010 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn. Photo: Jens Ziehe

The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden is showing the stunning and important Blinky Palermo: Retrospective 1964-1977 through May 15. The exhibition was organized by Lynne Cooke for the Dia Foundation, and will be shown at Dia in Beacon and the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College from June 25–Oct. 31. Palermo’s work has been hardly visible in the U.S. (other than at Dia), so it’s important to catch it at one venue or the other. The work has been published widely, but it does not lend itself to reproduction. He was a student of Beuys, and spent several years of his very brief career in New York, so he interacted with artists on both sides of the Atlantic.  Criticism of the work has been divided, with American scholars tending to see it as early conceptualism, and Europeans finding an attempt to re-habilitate painting as a significant art form.  The work is responsive to both views, but artists are likely to respond to his experimental methods, which look remarkably current. They include multi-part canvases which are dyed, rather than painted; small paintings which are positioned primarily to activate the space around them; wall drawings designed for specific locations; wooden forms colored by wrapping tape around them, rather than painting them (see below); the flat, colored forms displayed leaning against a wall, where they are not quite paintings and not quite sculpture; and reliefs of canvas stretched over irregularly-shaped stretchers which display distinctly crude craftsmanship (intentional, I assume).

Blinky Palermo ‘Blue Disk and Staff’ (1968) fabric tape on wood, staff: 94 x 4 x 3 1/8", disc 25 1/4"dia., private collection

I stopped in to see the Renwick Craft Invitational, this year subtitled History in the Making, because two of the four exhibited artists are Philadelphians.  The gallery of Judith Schaecter’s work includes an excellent selection of important pieces produced over the last twenty years. I will always find it a mystery that she creates scenes of emotional intensity and short duration in a medium primarily associated with churches (which are presumably intended to last forever).  The big surprise of the exhibition was a furniture-maker, Matthias Pilessnig, whose work I had not known. He constructs seating in bent wood, but about as far from Thonet as possible. His swelling and flowing forms are constructed out of cage or basket-like structures. The major problem for me was that the work was obviously intended to be used (the one exception being a Thonet chair which Pilessnig has roughly bound with ribbons of white oak), and I wasn’t allowed to sit.  Pilessnig’s seating is not furniture for the eye, and I very much wanted to test his seductive, organic forms with my entire body.

Judith Schaecter ‘Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife’ stained glass, 32 x 48"

Matthias Pilessnig ‘Wave’ (2007) white oak, collection of Lorraine W. Hilleman

The Phillips Collection is showing two intimate exhibitions of work by important, mid-twentieth century American artists, both on view through May 15; they offer better understanding of the artists’ work than the usual, huge surveys because their size encourages lingering with the works. Philip Guston, Roma is the first public exhibition of 39 small paintings from the trip to Italy that the artist made in 1970-71, after the very bad public response to his return to figuration in a cartoon-like style. The palatte and forms will be familiar to those who know Guston’s late work, but the great surprise is to find that a disembodied foot, so similar to the many shoes in Guston’s cartoon paintings, is derived from the fragment of the Colossus of Constantine in the courtyard of the Senator’s Palace in Rome; the same foot inspired one of my favorite images about artistic influence (the Fussli below). Other lumpy forms derive from trees and fountains in formal Italian gardens. It is fascinating and unexpected to learn that a trip to Italy, a standard part of an academic artist’s education, made such an impression on a former abstract expressionist.

Philip Guston ‘Roma (Fountain)’ (1971) Oil on paper mounted on canvas. Collection of Barbara and Sorrell Mathes, New York © Estate of Philip Guston; image courtesy McKee Gallery

Johann Heinrich Fussli ‘The Artist Moved to Despair by the Grandeur of Antique Fragments’ (1778–80) red chalk and sepia wash on paper, Kunsthaus, Zurich

David Smith Invents includes 40 sculptures, paintings, drawings, and vintage photographs by the artist of his work installed at Bolton Landing; all were done from the early 50s-60s, a significant moment in Smith’s development. It grounds Smith in his training as a painter; I never conceived of myself as anything other than a painter, he said. The large paintings, done with aerosol paints and stencils, are shown infrequently; some are extremely elongated verticals, with dimensions closer to totemic sculpture than to conventional paintings. The exhibition includes polychrome, painted sculpture and at least one work, Tanktotem IV (1963), where Smith manipulated the color of the patinating chemicals as if drawing with ink.  I’ve never seen anything quite like it.

David Smith ‘Black Concaves’ (1960) painted steel, © Estate of David Smith

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.

Mark Rothko No. 7 (1964), mixed media, 93 1/8 x 76 1/4 in , NGA

Some artists are particularly concerned with how their work is lit, and Mark Rothko was one of them. As Tom Hess told the story, Phillip Guston remembers the time when he and Rothko went to see the installation of one of Rothko’s shows at Janis. They strolled into the gallery and Mark, without a word, switched off half the lights. When Janis emerged from his office, the three of them chatted a bit and, in a pause in the conversation, Janis slid off and turned all the lights back on.  Rothko didn’t say anything. They finished their visit; Janis went back to work, Guston and Rothko waited for the elevator, and just before they entered it, Rothko turned half the lights off again. ‘I’m positive’ Guston says, ‘that Mark sneaked up there every day and turned the lights down – ….’

Seven from the series of more than a dozen black paintings Rothko produced in 1964 are on display at the National Gallery of Art’s (NGA) In the Tower: Mark Rothko, through Jan. 2, 2011.  They were never shown during the artist’s lifetime and this is the first exhibition to focus on them. In the hallway leading from the elevator are seven earlier works in which Rothko used black, and a short, introductory video narrated by Harry Cooper, the exhibition’s curator. None are from Rothko’s best known paintings of the 1950s, which employ floating rectangles of deeply-saturated colors; he used little black during that period.

Mark Rothko No. 8 (1964), oil, acrylic and mixed media, 105 x 80 in, NGA

Rothko had been commissioned to make two series of paintings before these: one for Harvard University in 1961-63 (now ruinously faded because of long exposure to un-filtered light, and un-exhibitable), another for The Four Seasons restaurant (1958-59), now at Tate, London. After completing the black paintings he fulfilled another commission, by Dominique de Menil, for a chapel in Houston; these were also dark monochromes.  The chapel was completed in 1971, after the artist’s death.

The arrangement of the black paintings at the NGA, on three walls of the Tower Gallery, inevitably evokes the canvases that cover the walls of the octagonal chapel in Houston, known as the Rothko Chapel.  Benches have been provided, making it easy for visitors to linger, and the curator has taken the unusual step of playing music: the work commissioned from Rothko’s friend, Morton Feldman, for the opening of the Rothko Chapel.

The most stunning aspect of the installation is the natural lighting from skylights (supplemented with artificial light, depending on weather conditions, although I visited on a rainy day and they were not turned on).  Almost all painters prefer their work be seen in sunlight and very few museums are able or willing to provide it, often for reasons of conservation; it’s harder to control than artificial lighting. At his exhibition in 1961 at the Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, Rothko had the lights turned off and the paintings shown entirely in natural light.

Mark Rothko No. 6 (?) (1964), oil, acrylic and mixed media, 93 x 76 in, NGA

For paintings with such subtle surface incident and narrow tonal range, the lighting is crucial.  Rothko varied the surface quality and sheen of his paints, some of which he mixed himself, often combining media; he also avoided varnish, which would have hidden these distinctions. The National Gallery of Art identifies most of the black paintings as mixed media, and the central forms are consistently less matte than their surroundings. Rothko always emphasized the hand-made quality of his paintings, the record of brush against canvas (and made it clear that this distinguished his work from the un-inflected, pristine surfaces of Ad Reinhardt, who’d been making velvet-y, black monochromes since 1952).

These are paintings that have to be experienced; reproductions convey very little.  Rothko’s compressed imagery demands not only proper lighting but also a viewer willing to move, so as to catch the surfaces from multiple angles. Serious attention reveals that the paintings are not properly black at all. From a sharp angle some appear dark brown but at a close distance reveal themselves to be various shades of purple, some of which incline towards red; the untitled painting has a wine red central field.  At a distance I was unable to distinguish the central fields from their surrounds in several of the paintings.  This hard looking was hard work.  At some point I found myself wondering why paint on canvas should matter so much; a thought that recurs from time to time. I’ll have to accept the historical explanation that within our cultural tradition, paint on canvas is the visual form where we manifest our most serious ideas. That may not be the case in 2010, but was still plausible for an artist of Rothko’s generation.

Mark Rothko ‘Ochre and Red on Red’ (1954), oil 92 5/8 x 63 3/4 in, Phillips Collection

The week after looking at the Rothkos in the NGA I found myself in the Corcoran Gallery of Art’s  Modern and Contemporary Art Since 1945 gallery, where I came upon Rothko’s Mulbery and Brown (1958), a painting so seductive I wanted to lick the surface (the museum was unwilling to provide an image, I’m sorry to say). The medium was listed as pigmented hide glue, egg and oil, and the surface had the sort of soft, pigment-saturated quality that Rothko sought with his home-made combinations of media. The gallery, once again, was sky lit, with the addition of incandescent floods.  This made me wonder about the famous Rothko Room at the Phillips, so I jumped in a cab to Dupont Circle.

The Phillips Collection opened the first room in a museum devoted to Rothko’s work in 1960. As the museum describes it:  Rothko himself took a close interest in the room, which inspired similar Rothko installations elsewhere. On one visit in 1961 when Duncan Phillips was away, he asked the museum staff to make several small adjustments to the space. Phillips immediately noticed—and reversed—the changes when he returned. He did agree, however, to limit the seating in the room to a single bench, a decision that is still honored today.

Mark Rothko ‘Green and Tangerine on Red’ (1956) oil 93 5/8 x 69 1/4 in, Phillips Collection

The Phillips also mentions that the room was relocated within the museum in 2006 and I can only surmise that the lighting was altered. The small, vertical window in the room casts no direct light on the paintings, which are illuminated by incandescent lights. These are so close to the paintings, in the low-ceilinged space, that the lighting is much stronger at the tops of the canvases than at the bottoms.  One of the paintings, Green and Tangerine on Red, has also been varnished.

Mark Rothko ‘Orange and Red on Red’ (1956) oil, 68 7/8 x 66 3/8 in, Phillips collection

The Rothko Room is still a unique opportunity to be surrounded by the artist’s work in such proximity that the paintings become the environment, rather than distinct fields upon a wall.  But to see Rothko’s work at its best as well as to sensitize one’s eye to the powerful effects of lighting, it’s worth going to the NGA and the Corcoran while these examples are on view.

Willem de Kooning 'Untitled VI' (1983) Meyerhoff Collection

The only thing dull about The Robert and Jane Meyerhoff Collection at the National Gallery of Art: Selected Works (NGA) through May 2, 2010 is the exhibition title.  I’d rather call it, with apologies to Wallace Stevens, Ten Ways of Looking at a Painting, with further apologies for the handful of drawings, prints and 3-dimensional works;  it is overwhelmingly a paintings exhibition.  The works, some already donated, the remainder promised to the NGA, are superb and the curatorial decisions intelligent, provocative and subtle.  Harry Cooper, curator of modern and contemporary art, arranged ten sections, each labeled with a subject to ponder while looking at the art.  Then he modestly withdrew, allowing the works to speak directly to viewers and to each other.

Frank Stella 'Gray Scramble' (1969) Meyerhoff Collection

The artists, of various post WWII approaches, are mostly very well known: de Kooning, Kline, Rothko, Johns, Rauschenberg, Lichtenstein, Stella, Kelly and Marden among them.  What Cooper’s exhibition did was shake up my usual and customary thoughts about these long-familiar artists and asked me to look anew.  I left with understandings that were less neat and contained but a lot more interesting.

The first gallery, labeled Scrape, is an essay in the brushless application of paint.  On entering I saw the splendid de Kooning Untitled VI (1983,  above), made when the artist’s painting was all gesture and no mind  – but what gestures!  I peered closely at an untitled painting by Julian Lethbridge of 1989 whose surface resembled alligator skin but couldn’t fathom the paint application from mere looking, despite clear indications of the use of a broad palette knife.  Beside it was one of Albers’ homages to the square which reminded me of his description of his practice: no skylight, no studio, no palette, no easel, no brushes, no medium, no canvas.  I was caught off guard when Brice Marden’s Picasso’s Skull (1989-90) employed scraping not for the figural lines, but for the background.

Roy Lichtenstein 'White Brushstroke II' (1965) Meyerhoff Collection, NGA

Concentricity was the theme of the second gallery and the surprise here was that it applied to shapes beyond circles.  After a moment the themes began to echo, as they would more and more throughout the exhibition. I remembered Johns’ concentric circles in two lithographs in Scrape then saw indications here in Johns’ encaustic, Mirror’s Edge 2 (1993), that he scraped paint through a screen, using it as a stencil.  Another Albers in Concentricity was isomorphic to the one in Scrape, with equally scraped paint .

Robert Rauschenberg 'Frigate (Jammer)' (1975) Meyerhoff Collection

I laughed when I saw the Bochner drawing First Fulcrum (1975) in Line, as the only lines were the negative spaces between the two geometric figures. The lines in Agnes Martin’s Field #21 (1963) contributed to a regular grid wherein each individual line became lost.  In Rauschenberg’s Frigate (Jammer) (1975,  above) the irregular line was a piece of wire which impaled a cardboard tube at the top, projecting through it and supporting a plastic water glass, while its tail end was draped with a ragged red flag of the sort used by trucks carrying oversized loads.

Ellsworth Kelly Blue 'Violet Curve I' (1982) Meyerhoff Collection

Ellsworth Kelly’s Blue Violet Curve I (1982, above) was the first work visible in Gesture, its gesture created by the curved meeting the straight side of the shaped canvas, turning it into a directional arrow.  A more conventional example of gesture was Franz Kline’s Turbin (1959) where the gestural brushwork was as much a masculine display as a peacock’s tail. Another Johns encaustic appeared in Drip, creating further echos; it bore another sign of a screen, this time used to transfer paint, as a stamp.  Grace Hartigan is not usually associated with fluid paint, but in Josephine (1983, below), the empress, her contours seeping away, walks through an atmosphere of drips.

Grace Hartigan 'Josephine' (1983) Meyerhoff Collection

And so on, through Stripe to Zip, Figure or Ground, Monochrome and Picture the Frame, with surprises throughout.  Exhibitions drawn from the permanent collections are appropriate to the current financial climate, but more than that, when a museum has such great collections they integrate the museum’s collecting function with its public and educational ones, leveraging the returns.

The Darker Side of Light; Arts of Privacy, 1850-1900

Edgar Degas 'Woman by a Fireplace' (1880-90) monotype, NGA

The NGA currently has several other exhibitions drawn largely from its own collections.  The print department is showing The Darker Side of Light; Arts of Privacy, 1850-1900 through January 18, 2010 then traveling to Chicago, curated by Peter Parshall.  I love prints and would heartily recommend this to anyone similarly inclined.  It gathers 120 works made in France, Belgium and Germany in the later 19th century, largely etchings and other prints but including a  number of small sculptures, reliefs and medals.  The premise is that this was the period when the modern notion of privacy developed and with it came a range of art intended to be viewed within that personal space.  It was also the period of the etching revival, when artists rediscovered Rembrandt’s printmaking and turned out masses of prints for collectors obsessive enough to be interested in multiple states (as many as ten, all duly indicated on the prints and in catalogs).

Felix Bracquemonde 'The Moles' (1854) etching, NGA

The exhibition is arranged around themes (The City, Nature, Obsession, Violence and so forth), and reveals some of the odder interests of the period that were too marginal to feature in paintings: the dead rodents of Felix Bracquemond’s ‘The Moles’ (1854, above, PETA wouldn’t like it), the plague of Cholera in Paris (1865) by François Nicolas Chifflart, depicted as a swarm of nude figures floating above the city, or the hallucination of fish floating through the sky in Charles Meryon’s otherwise topographic Ministry of the Marine, Paris (1865). Anyone who doesn’t know Max Klinger’s series, A Glove (1880-81, below),  has missed one of the late 19th century’s great expressions of fetishism, made at the time the term was adopted in psychology.

Max Klinger 'Abduction' from 'A Glove' (1880/81) etching proof (I/II), NGA

One problem with the exhibition is that in a gallery with prints by Degas and Munch it’s impossible to concentrate on the Besnards and Zorns.  The exhibition includes a handful of really first-rate artists who overwhelm the larger group who were splendid technicians, but artists of limited, if interesting, scope.  It also strikes me as unlikely that anyone who collected most of the etchings in the exhibition would be interested in the one lithograph by Munch, which would bear display at more than hand-held distance.

Klinger’s eroticism was displaced or expressed relatively chastely and while the subject runs through several of the exhibition’s themes, its most overt expression is Franz von Stuck’s Sensuality (c. 1891), depicting a nude woman with a huge snake writhing between her legs and around her shoulders.  This brings up a significant omission in the exhibition, which is the frankly erotic (Felicien Rops’ genre better-known than those in the exhibition); they were clearly an art of privacy, referred to in the catalog but not on view.  This is an occasion when they might reach the museum walls; I assume some linger in closely guarded museum Solander cases.

The Drawings department also has an exhibition drawn from the collections: Renaissance to Revolution: French Drawings from the National Gallery of Art, 1500 – 1800. I can’t do it justice here.

Desiderius Helmschmid, Helmet of Emperor Charles V, c.1540, Patrimonio Nacional, Real Armería, Madrid

Such armor was rarely intended as practical protection during battle; rather it had a starring role in parades, jousting tournaments and court rituals and was favored attire for official portraits.  This was probably the last period in which male dress out-shined that of women; the primal nature of such display can be seen in a woodcut by Hans Burgkmair showing Maximilian and his horse, both armored, with peacock feathers crowning the emperor’s helmet.

Hans Burgkmair I, Emperor Maximilian I, 1508-1518 chiaroscuro woodcut, National Gallery of Art

You needn’t have an interest in armor to appreciate this work.  Ten years ago I was visiting New York and my husband, a scholar of Italian Renaissance architecture, told me to see an exhibition of Filippo Negroli’s work at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  I had no interest in armor but, trusting him, I went and discovered that Negroli was the Michelangelo of armorers.  His imagination was as boundless as his ability to execute his fantastic designs.  The forms of the helmets, shoulder pieces and breastplates become foundations for every sort of beast, real or imagined, often with bared teeth.

Filippo Negroli, Parade Helmet of Emperor Charles V, 1533 Patrimonio Nacional, Real Armería, Madrid

The exhibition includes Negroli’s helmet for Charles V (above) that functions as a portrait of the red-headed emperor complete with a laurel wreath resting on realistic ears and a head and beard of tight curls (made of gold) which turned the emperor into the image of a Greek god.  An imperial eagle is perched on another Negroli helmet whose golden beak becomes a visor, and for the famous Burgonet of Charles V  (below) two mythological figures hold the elongated moustaches of the bound Turkish captive who is sprawled across the crown. The German armorers were no slackers; the exhibition includes numerous works by various members of the Helmschmid family of Augsburg, the most important German armorers.

Kolman Helmschmid, Helmet (Burgonet) of Emperor Charles V, c. 1530, Patrimonio Nacional, Real Armería, Madrid

The exhibition includes not only armor for the rulers but for their horses, as well as paintings, splendid tapestries depicting the armored rulers, and that other major work of political propaganda that carried Maximilian’s reputation across Europe: his Triumphal Arch, a gigantic print composed of 42 woodcuts and 2 engravings which traced the emperor’s descent from Hector of Troy, Julius Caesar and Clovis, founder of the French royal dynasty.  The only extant set of Renaissance armor in the ancient Roman style (with a skirt of leather) is also on view.

Filippo and Francesco Negroli Helmet (Burgonet) of Emperor Charles V, 1545, Patrimonio Nacional, Real Armería, Madrid

The NGA has done something new for this exhibition: during specified hours they’ve set up a resource table manned by a volunteer, with examples of a helmet, gauntlet, and chain mail that visitors can try on, bits of old tapestry that can be handled and assorted reference books.  I think it’s great that they acknowledge the power of touch in learning, even though I suspect they intended the reproduction armor for children.  Its hours are M-F 11-1, Sa 2-4 and Su 3-5.

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.

Radical Light Fixtures; Moholy-Nagy and Co. at the National Gallery of Art

Laszlo Moholy Nagy photogram (positive) 1922-24, National Gallery of Art; the exhibition also includes a photogram from which this was made (e.g. a negative to this image’s positive). The sense of movement from the spring and the blurred white objects in front of it imply movement, which Moholy incorporated into at least one of his sculptures, Light Prop (1930)(a reconstruction of which is owned by the Harvard University Art Museums). Moholy used the moving sculpture which casts changing shadows as the subject of the film Light Play: Black, White, Gray (1930).

A fascinating small exhibit, Radical Light Fixtures; Moholy-Nagy and Co., is tucked into the 2nd floor galleries of the National Gallery of Art’s East Building through some time in March, 2009. Drawn entirely from the collection, it consists of nine works from the 1920s in varied media by Laszlo Moholy-Nagy and work by four artists to whose ideas he responded: El Lissitszky’s cover for Wendingen, a lithograph by Malevich, a Jean Puni relief and a painting on panel by Rodchenko. The exhibition follows Moholy’s musings on the cubist structure behind Russian modernism merged with his interest in light as a dematerializing force. It also traces the speed at which ideas traveled from Paris to Moscow to Berlin in the 1920s, not to mention ideas Moholy brought from Budapest and Vienna.

Jean Puni Suprematist Relief-Sculpture (1920s reconstruction of 1915 original), painted wood, metal and cardboard mounted on wood, 20 x 15 ½ x 3 in., the Museum of Modern Art. MoMA’s relief is more or less contemporaneous to that owned by the National Gallery of Art and currently on view.

According to curator Harry Cooper’s gallery notes, Moholy was proud that he redirected the metal workshops at the Berlin Bauhaus from making samovars and jewelry to making light fixtures. Cooper selected the Moholy pieces (a photograph, a photogram and related photograph, 2 collages, 2 linocuts, one lithograph and one painting) because in various ways they explore light. The photogram, of course, is an index of actual light reaching un-blocked areas of photo-sensitive paper. The lithograph plays with light and shadow around a geometric structure while the collage includes a tubular element corresponding to the shape of a modern fluorescent light bulb.

El Lissitzsky front cover of Wendingen IV, no. 11 (1921); the National Gallery of Art has the entire cover whose design wraps from front to back.

All of this got me thinking about modernist lighting fixtures. The most well-known Bauhaus lamp is Carl Jacob Jucker and Wilhelm Wagenfeld’s table lamp, modern in styling but utterly conventional in conception. If the school produced more adventurous designs, I don’t know them. There are two significant examples of lighting from the 1920s-30s, however, that are thoroughly modern in their use of exposed tubular bulbs: one by Eileen Grey, the other by Gerrit Rietveld. Interesting that two architects thought about light bulbs as structural elements.

Eileen Grey, floor lamp (1930s), 36″, chrome and incandescent tube. I have never actually seen one of these lamps although it (or a copy) is still in production.


Gerrit Rietveld, hanging lamp (1920) 41″ x 15 3/4″ x 15 3/4″, glass-enclosed cords, wood, tubular bulbs; MoMA owns an example which is usually on display.

Golden Seams; The Japanese Art of Mending Ceramics at the Freer Gallery, Smithsonian Institution

Nineteenth-century raku tea bowl with kintsugi repair. Freer Gallery, Smithsonian Institution

I’d been looking forward to the Golden Seams exhibition (at the Freer through May 10, 2009) because of a long-standing interest in art conservation and the philosophical judgements involved in so many restoration decisions. I don’t mean the decisions about how to preserve or repair an artwork but the inherent question of what is being preserved: the idea of the work as represented by its original appearance, or the physical remains which incorporate its history and use? Nothing highlights the judgement involved as well as the Japanese method of repairing ceramics known as kintsugi (golden joinery). Kintsugi involves the use of laquer to reattach broken ceramics (stoneware or porcelain), which is then coated with silver or gold. Not only is there no attempt to hide the damage, but the repair is literally illuminated.

Raku tea bowl with golden repair (source unknown).

Kintsugi has a history: the Shogun Ashikaga Yoshimasa (1434-90) sent a damaged celadon tea bowl back to China where it was repaired according to custom: held together with visible pieces of metal which resemble staples. In response his craftsmen developed kintsugi. These golden repairs are especially associated with utensils used in the tea ceremony which are intentionally simple and rustic, usually of stoneware; this acceptance of the accidental is consistent with Zen Buddhism which was behind the culture of tea. The Japanese have used kintsugi on their own ceramics as well as those from China and Korea. It is said that some bowls have been purposely broken so that golden repairs can be made, increasing their value.

The Freer exhibition includes comparative examples of Sung/Yuan ware repaired according to the Chinese and Japanese methods as well as a piece repaired with gold that has been elaborately patterned so it looks like brocade fabric. The small gallery contains 13 pieces and is situated off a larger gallery featuring the use of gold in Japanese art. You can find further examples of golden joinery in the Freer’s Korean gallery, not all labeled as such.

When Brian O’Doherty famously described the white cube that is the setting for much contemporary art it was to critique its ideology, the illusion it fosters that the art it encloses is separate from all life outside, separate from history, society, labor, commerce. But the white cube is also an architectural space and that profoundly affects the art as well. This was dramatically brought home when I saw the Martin Puryear exhibition at the National Gallery of Art (NGA, on view until Sept. 28, 2008 before traveling to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art). I saw the exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) which organized it, and didn’t feel the need to see it in D.C. until my friend and colleague Ann Hoenigswald convinced me otherwise.

Martin Puryear A Distant Place (2005), basswood, yellow cedar, white pine, and maple burl, 15′ 3/8″ x 35 3/4″ x 35 3/4″, collection the artist, © Martin Puryear, image courtesy Donald Young Gallery, Chicago

I remember entering the exhibition at MoMA, taking a long appreciative look, and turning to the first guard I found to inquire whether the artist had installed it; I’d never seen sculpture so sensitively arranged. Puryear had, of course, and would do so again in Washington. His placement accounted for each grouping of work fully in three dimensions and all of the sight-lines from one room to another. But MoMA’s galleries are the ultimate white cubes: windowless and featureless, with flexible but character-less lighting.

Martin Puryear Desire (1981) pine, red cedar, poplar, Sitka spruce, 16′ x 32′, FAI Fondo per l’Ambiente Italiano, Villa Menafoglio Litta Panza, Varese, Panza Collection, gift 1996 © Martin Puryear, photo copyright Giorgio Colombo, Milan

In Washington Puryear wisely, but against all expectation, chose to site the bulk of the work (forty pieces) in the Gallery’s original, neo-classical building rather than in I.M.Pei’s East Building, where six pieces overflow the main exhibition rooms. Puryear used a u-shaped sequence of rooms which visitors can enter from either direction, emphasizing the lack of frontality in his sculpture. I entered at Fourth Street and climbed the stairs to see A Distant Place (2005, above) with what looks like an over-sized narwhal’s tusk standing vertically, sited in the center of a square marble hall. Behind it two putti played in the fountain of a landscaped courtyard and the long, central hall of the second-floor galleries stretched beyond. This clearly announced the resonance the sculpture would have with its surroundings.

Turning right, the first room held three pieces whose elegant but obviously hand-worked carpentry (raw wood, pegs and exposed laminates freely on view) contrasted with the polished wood floors, marble baseboards and traditional molding on the walls. In the second room the elongated, vertical tongue-like element of Lever No. 1 (1988-89) rose like a plant attracted to the natural light from the skylights. With far fewer pieces within eyesight than at MoMA, each sculpture assumes more significance and the experience of seeing them is more intimate.

Martin Puryear Some Tales (1975-78) yellow pine, ash, and hickory, 13′ 1 ½” x 32′ 93/4″, Panza Collection, © Martin Puryear, photo copyright Giorgio Colombo, Milan

Puryear’s installation emphasizes a visceral interaction with the sculpture. The smaller galleries never hold more than three pieces. The giant Desire (1981, above), in a room to itself, is placed at an angle, encouraging visitors to walk beneath the axle attached to its giant wooden wheel. Two other galleries are particularly stunning: in one the long walls hold Some Lines for Jim Beckworth (1978), long pieces of twisted rawhide that call to mind the knotted counting strings used by various indigenous Americans, and opposite it Some Tales (1975-78, above), which read like a song of praise for simple, wooden tools; the last or first room, depending on where you enter, is octagonal with two openings. The remaining six walls hold a series of Puryear’s elegant hoops, emphasizing the 3-dimensionality of even those pieces which flirt with 2-dimensions.

Martin Puryear Dream of Pairing (1981) painted pine, 51 ½” x 54 ½” x 2″, Alice Kleberg Reynolds, San Antonio, TX, © Martin Puryear, photo Roger Fry

MoMA and the NGA are both restrained in their presentation, allowing the work to speak for itself; but it speaks in a different voice in the Gallery’s very different surroundings. If you think you know Martin Puryear’s work, take another look.