The ART of the Dealer – the True Believer

As it is believed behind every brilliant actor or musician there is a remarkable manager, it seems behind every great art movement there is an exceptional art dealer.

Renoir’s Dance at Bougival, 1883, is one of the masterworks that seduced Londoners in the famous show Durand-Ruel presented at the Grafton Galleries in 1905. Image courtesy of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston — **One of my favourite paintings: Renoir’s Dance at Bougival**, 1883, is one of the masterworks that seduced Londoners in the famous show Durand-Ruel presented at the **Grafton Galleries** in 1905. Image courtesy of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

An important new exhibition at the PHILADELPHIA MUSEUM OF ART (PMA) celebrates the keen eye of Paul Durand-Ruel, the Paris dealer who defied the scorn of critics to promote the raggedy brand of pioneering young painters we now know as the Impressionists.

An exhibition celebrating his brave achievement, “Discovering the Impressionists: Paul Durand-Ruel and the New Painting,” is on view at the PMA through September 13th. It features scores of intoxicating canvases by Claude Monet, Édouard Manet, Edgar Degas, Mary Cassatt and Pierre-Auguste Renoir, all beloved now, but in their own day savaged.

“Discovering the Impressionists: Paul Durand-Ruel and the New Painting” features more than 90 intoxicating canvases by the movement’s masters. Photo by Graydon Wood — **“Discovering the Impressionists: Paul Durand-Ruel and the New Painting”** features more than 90 intoxicating canvases by the movement’s masters. Photo by Graydon Wood

The success of Impressionism was largely due to the intrepid zeal of Durand-Ruel. Or should one say survival? “Without Durand, we would have died of hunger, all of us Impressionists,” a grateful Claude Monet exclaimed shortly after the dealer’s death in 1922 at the age of 90.

A man of conviction, who went to mass every morning, Durand-Ruel never wavered in his belief in his artists. During his long life, he purchased approximately 1,000 Monets, 1,500 Renoirs, 200 Manets, 400 Degases and 800 Camille Pissarros. He once owned Eugène Delacroix’s epic Death of Sardanapalus, 1827, now in the Louvre, and Renoir’s Luncheon of the Boating Party, 1880-81, one of the treasures of the Phillips Collection, along with other masterpieces that ended up in the PMA, Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Gallery in London and Pushkin Museum in Moscow.

In 1851, when he was just 20 years old, Durand-Ruel joined his ailing father at his family’s picture gallery near the Place Vendôme, which over the next 70 years he would transform into an artist-promoting powerhouse. He had a discerning eye, trusted his instincts and was not afraid to sit on stock — or even purchase it back. He introduced such now standard practices as operating his gallery in several cities (London, Brussels and New York), mounting solo shows, sending work to international exhibitions, organizing public lectures, publishing exhibition catalogs, backing art magazines and giving his artists stipends.

The American expat Mary Cassatt was among the many painters Durand-Ruel discovered. She focused on domestic scenes like The Child’s Bath, 1893. Image courtesy of The Art Institute of Chicago: Robert A. Waller Fund — The American expat **Mary Cassatt** was among the many painters Durand-Ruel discovered. She focused on domestic scenes like **The Child’s Bath**, 1893. Image courtesy of The Art Institute of Chicago: Robert A. Waller Fund.

At last, in Philadelphia, Durand-Ruel is getting the credit he richly deserves for having put Impressionism on the map. We may be late to the party, but Renoir always knew this day would come. “Your love of art and your defense of living artists,” he presciently told Durand-Ruel in 1885, “will be your claim to fame.”

Source: title changed and condensed from an article written by Phyllis Tuchman for “Introspective Magazine”

Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life – Pablo Picasso

This quote by Charles Dickens (Bleak House) best sums up giving credit where credit is due – “He didn’t at all see why the busy bee should be proposed as a model to him; he supposed the Bee liked to make honey, or he wouldn’t do it — nobody asked him. It was not necessary for the bee to make such a merit of his tastes.” – Dickens

Art & Culture

ART – Lessons We Can Learn from Kandinsky

As a new gallery of Kandinsky’s work opens in New York, we examine key lessons that can be learned from the legendary painter and art theorist – which is perfect for what MATTERS for life in general.

Improvisation 28 (second version) (Improvisation 28 [zweite Fassung]) by Vasily Kandinsky, 1912 Courtesy of Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Solomon R. Guggenheim Founding Collection — **Improvisation 28** (second version) by Vasily Kandinsky, 1912 Courtesy of Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Solomon R. Guggenheim Founding Collection.

The career of Wassily Kandinsky ranged from theorising colour and geometric forms in completely new ways to painting some of the first abstract paintings as well as writing books on completely new concepts in art. Simply put, Kandinsky was ground breaking in the ways he divorced himself from typical norms of old school fine art and broke new ground by taking inspiration from everything to music and human emotion, reinterpreting these topics into colourful artworks and brilliant theoretical books.

Blue Mountain (Der blaue Berg) by Vasily Kandinsky, 1908–09 Courtesy of Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Solomon R. Guggenheim Founding Collection — **Blue Mountain** (Der blaue Berg) by Vasily Kandinsky, 1908–09 Courtesy of Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Solomon R. Guggenheim Founding Collection.

The latest gallery of 150 Kandinsky works at The Guggenheim in New York traces the artist’s aesthetic evolution and contribution to the abstract art movement, from his early days working as a painter in Munich to the last era of his career in Paris. Here, we look at what we can learn from the storied artist, from living a colourful life to knowing the value of contrast.

Black Lines (Schwarze Linien) by Vasily Kandinsky, December 1913Courtesy of Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Solomon R. Guggenheim Founding Collection — **Black Lines** (Schwarze Linien) by Vasily Kandinsky, December 1913 Courtesy of Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Solomon R. Guggenheim Founding Collection.

Let your STYLE evolve
Kandinksy knew the true value of having confidence to move from one aesthetic to another. Though primarily known as an abstract artist, he often experimented with different forms of abstraction with much success. During his Blue Rider period, his paintings were large and expressive, with markings that varied in shape and size. But his Bauhaus period saw paintings that were centered on controlled geometrics and sharp lines. He turned the classic saying of “Do one thing and do it well,” on its head – and that lesson can be used for fashion advice or life in general.
LIVE a colourful life
His paintings offer the anecdote that living a colourful life is always better than living a dreary one in only black and white. As a highly spiritual artist, Kandinsky saw colour as emotional therapy and injected much of it into his paintings. In his book, Concerning the Spiritual in Art, he wrote, “Colours on the painter’s palette evoke a double effect: a purely physical effect on the eye which is charmed by the beauty of colours, similar to the joyful impression when we eat a delicacy. This effect can be much deeper, however, causing a vibration of the soul or an “inner resonance” – a spiritual effect in which the colour touches the soul itself.” On an off day, we can always imagine ourselves living inside a Kandinsky painting.
KNOW when to take a break
There’s no doubt Kandinsky was a hard worker. He produced hundreds of works and painted until the last few years of his life. But he also knew when to take a break from his work. One day, an exhausted Kandinksy decided to take a walk. When he returned to his studio, one of his paintings had been accidentally turned upside down by friend and fellow artist Gabriele Münter. Without recognising it as his own, he proclaimed it was “of extraordinary beauty, glowing with inner radiance.” This moment was said to change his ideas about painting and open his eyes to abstraction. Taking a break or stepping back from a big project can make one see things in a different light – especially if someone else gets involved in the most unexpected ways.
BELIEVE in the power of contrast
There’s a reason why black and white striped tops forever remain a wardrobe staple. Kandinsky recognized the power of contrasting colours and shapes early, assigning hues emotional qualities and using them to balance each other out. “White and black form the second great contrast, which is static. White is a deep, absolute silence, full of possibility. Black is nothingness without possibility, an eternal silence without hope, and corresponds with death,” he wrote in Concerning the Spiritual Art. Similarly, Kandinsky’s paintings often play with contrasting shapes: long, sharp lines juxtapose soft orb-like spheres and curves. Life wouldn’t be as beautiful without the best of both worlds.
The INNER self matters
If all of Kandinsky’s beliefs could be condensed into one, his biggest theory would probably be what he called “internal necessity.” His paintings were colourfully stunning but they weren’t just based on pure aesthetics. As well as believing in a form of communication between the artist and the viewer, Kandinsky believed in total self-awareness. He committed to his feelings and senses and often theorised that shapes and colours were attached to his own emotional feelings. For example, he felt the circle was the most peaceful symbol – so he used it to create his own codes throughout his work. He also considered black as the colour of closure. And with this system, he created not just beautiful work, but his own language that was completely one of a kind and representative of a singular person.

Love his theory

The Kandinsky gallery is at The Guggenheim, New York until Spring 2016.

Source: Kristen Bateman for http://anothermag.com

Art & Culture

ART – a living connection to ART History

“The work of art must seize upon you, wrap you up in itself, carry you away. It is the means by which the artist conveys his passion; it is the current which he puts forth which sweeps you along in his passion.” ― Pierre-Auguste Renoir

This painting holds special significance to me

Madame Josse Bernheim-Jeune et son fils Henry [Mrs Josse Bernheim-Jeune and her son Henry] — Madame Josse Bernheim-Jeune et fils Henry [Mrs Josse Bernheim-Jeune and her son Henry]

I know a relative of the two people in this painting. About five months ago I had brunch in Oregon with a very interesting woman who is the daughter of the little boy (yes, it is a boy) who is sitting on his mother’s lap in this Renoir oil painting. The woman I met (name withheld) is the friend of a friend I was travelling with. The woman in this painting would of course be her grandmother. Her grandparents were friends with Renoir. Her grandfather and his brother were established art dealers for the first generation of impressionists. So I looked up the painting which hangs in the Musée d’Orsay and thought I would share it with you.

About the painting:

Pierre Auguste Renoir (1841-1919) Mrs Josse Bernheim-Jeune and her son Henry – 1910 Oil on Canvas H. 92,5; W. 73,3 cm Paris, Musée d’Orsay

The model for this painting was Mathilde Adler (1882-1963). In 1901 she married her cousin, Josse Bernheim-Jeune (1870-1941) while her sister Suzanne (1883-1961) married his brother Gaston (1870-1953). For several years the Bernheim-Jeune brothers had been established as dealers for the first generation of Impressionists.
They had already turned to Renoir for a portrait of the two young fiancées, in September 1901. In 1910, he was approached once again. At his country property, Les Collettes, near Cagnes-sur-Mer, Renoir painted for Josse a portrait of his wife and their son Henry Dauberville (1907-1988).

THE BERNHEIM-JEUNE STORY

Extract of the article dedicated to Bernheim-Jeune in the Larousse Encyclopedia:

ʺBernheim-Jeune (said Bernheim), art dealer’s family native of Besançon which can be traced from the late XVIIIth century at the head of a business of painting supplies (frames and colours for the artists).

Succeeding Joseph Bernheim (1799 1859), his son Alexandre Bernheim (1839-1915) friend of Delacroix, Corot and Gustave Courbet, came to settle down in Paris in 1863, settled down at 8 rue Lafitte (on the advice of his fellow countryman of Besançon, G. Courbet). This is where Alexandre Bernheim presents the impressionists in 1874. Transferred in 1906 to 25 boulevard de la Madeleine and 15 rue Richepanse, the Bernheim gallery takes its real development under the supervision of Alexandre Bernheim’s sons, Josse Bernheim-Jeune (1870-1941) and Gaston Bernheim-Jeune (1870-1953). They organise (in particular) in 1901, the first Van Gogh exhibition, present Bonnard and Vuillard in 1906, Cézanne and Cross (1907), Seurat and Van Dongen (1908), Matisse (1910), Boundin, the ʺItalian Futuristsʺ (1912), Le douanier Rousseau (1916), R.Dufy and Vlaminck (1921), Modigliani (1922), Utrillo (1923), Marquet (1925), Gauguin (1930), having settled down avenue Matignon (1925)ʺ.

“Bernheim-Jeune indeed, is the first gallery to settle down avenue Matignon (at the corner of avenue Matignon and rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré). Its new places were inaugurated by Gaston Doumergue, President of the French Republic, for the opening of the exhibition: ʺMasterpieces of the XIXth and XXth Centuryʺ.

“I have arrived more definitely than any other painter during his lifetime; honours shower upon me from every side; artists pay me compliments on my work; there are many people to whom my position must seem enviable…. But I don’t seem to have a single real friend!” ― Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Art & Culture

ART: for the sake of it

A few pieces that move me…

“Painting is poetry that is seen rather than felt, and poetry is painting that is felt rather than seen.” – Leonardo da Vinci

ArteBA — Buenos Aires’ Annual Contemporary Art Fair

A piece by Pablo Zel in ArteBA 2012 — A piece by **Pablo Zel i**n ArteBA 2012

Marta Minujín - from Arte BA — A piece by Marta Minujín – from Arte BA

Laura Ann Jacobs - Top Drawer Trappings of the Bon Ton, 2006 — **Laura Ann Jacobs** –
Top Drawer Trappings of the Bon Ton, 2006

Elaine Buckholtz - Wo Hing Cinemascope, 2015 OFFERED BY SASHA WOLF GALLERY — **Elaine Buckholtz** – Wo Hing Cinemascope, 2015
OFFERED BY SASHA WOLF GALLERY

Above: Geoengineered Collusion by Franco DeFrancesca, 2014. A multidisciplinary artist since 2004, Franco DeFrancesca has created sculpture/installations, photography, digital art, and sound. He investigates the links between art and memory, history and technology, and uses digital imaging as a means to navigate the territory between photography and painting.

The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance – Aristotle

Art, Architecture, Culture

ART of the Billionaire and the BROAD

Eli Broad inspires both admiration and fear in the L.A. art scene.

John Baldessari’s “Overlap Series: Palms (with Cityscape) and Climbers,” from Eli and Edythe Broad’s collection.COURTESY MARIAN GOODMAN GALLERY — John Baldessari’s “**Overlap Series: Palms (with Cityscape) and Climbers**,” from Eli and Edythe Broad’s collection. COURTESY MARIAN GOODMAN GALLERY

Despite the enormous sprawl and diversity of Los Angeles, it still has the power dynamics of a small town. When people refer to “Eli,” everyone knows whom they mean.

Broad, a multibillionaire who made his money in the decidedly unglamorous businesses of tract housing and insurance, is the Lorenzo de’ Medici of Los Angeles—the city’s singular patron, especially of the arts – a man who can close his eyes and see the future.

After creating shareholder wealth by providing vital homebuilding and retirement savings services through the two Fortune 500 companies he created – KB Home and SunAmerica, Inc. – Eli Broad and Edythe, his wife of 57 years, are now devoting their time, energy and resources to philanthropy.

Although Broad is the subject of constant conversation, few people are willing to criticize him openly. He often declares that Los Angeles should not be a “one-philanthropist town,” but the lack of competition has worked to his advantage.

Los Angeles ranks forty-first in charitable giving among American cities, behind Minneapolis and Detroit. Still, Broad envisages L.A. as comparable to New York in its prominence and its cultural reach, and, in the past decade or so, it has indeed joined the world’s great art centers, with a thriving artists’ community, art schools, museums, and a rapidly increasing number of galleries and collectors.

In the sixties, when Broad started building his fortune in Los Angeles, the city had no serious opera, ballet, or theatre. It had a flourishing group of artists—Ed Ruscha, Robert Irwin, John Baldessari, Ken Price, Larry Bell, Edward Kienholz, and others—but they relied on New York galleries to show their work. The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) didn’t open as an independent institution until 1965, nearly a hundred years after the Metropolitan Museum; it was built not with old money, like such institutions as the Whitney and the Frick, but, in part, with funds from an entertainment-business committee headed by Tony Curtis and Billy Wilder. The local attitude toward contemporary art was often unwelcoming. In 1966, LACMA showed Kienholz’s “Back Seat Dodge ’38,” which depicted a couple having sex in a car, and it provoked such an outcry that the county threatened to withdraw funding.

Broad apparently found a lot of contemporary art ridiculous. In the beginning, he thought Roy Lichtenstein was a joke; now he has a major collection of Lichtenstein. He would ask everybody who was informed what their opinion was and put together his world view based on that. That’s what a good C.E.O. does.

For more than half a century, Broad has taken inspiration from a paperweight on his desk. On it is a quote from George Bernard Shaw: “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world. The unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”

The Broads’ first major purchases were a van Gogh, a Miró, a Matisse, and a Modigliani. Broad saw that art brought entrée into a different kind of social life—one in which, travelling to any city in the world, he could have connections to artists, collectors, and dealers. “When you’ve got the big house, and you’re driving a Jaguar, what differentiates you from every asshole dentist in the Valley?” Shelley De Angelus, who worked for Broad as his curator in the eighties and nineties, said. “Art was a way for Eli to distinguish himself.”

Now the Broad’s are the philanthropists behind a new contemporary art museum being built on Grand Avenue in downtown Los Angeles named appropriately, The BROAD.

The BROAD

The Broad has suffered some significant delays in opening, but on September 20th, when the doors do finally swing open, Angelenos can expect to find an entirely columnless, sky-lit gallery designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro. And then all the impatience will surely be forgotten. The museum will house and continually exhibit Eli and Edythe (aka Edye) Broad’s collection of contemporary art, which is one of the largest and most significant worldwide. Plus, they’ve got great taste and have amassed large collections of works by artists like Cindy Sherman, Roy Lichtenstein, Jeff Koons, and Christopher Wool. The fact that restaurateur Bill Chait of Bestia and Republique fame and Tim Hollingsworth of The French Laundry are teaming up on the restaurant next door should provide LA residents with even more incentive to head downtown.

The Broads - Eli & Edythe — Eli & Edythe Broad

Source: (for the Billionaire) condensed from a large article How Eli Broad took over Los Angeles by Connie Bruck for NewYorker.com

Something to look forward to in September…

Art & Culture

The ART of Imagination – the brilliant illustrations of Christoph Niemann

You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus – Mark Twain

While on the hunt for something artistically unusual Christoph Niemann’s name came up.

Christoph Niemann is an illustrator, artist, and author.

His work has appeared on the covers The New Yorker, Time, Wired, The New York Times Magazine and American Illustration, and has won awards from AIGA, the Art Directors Club and The Lead Awards.

His corporate clients include Google, Amtrak, Herman Miller and The Museum of Modern Art. He is a member of the Alliance Graphique Internationale.Since July 2008, Niemann has been writing and illustrating the whimsical Abstract City, a New York Times blog, renamed Abstract Sunday in 2011, when the blog’s home became The New York Times Magazine. For his column he draws and writes essays about politics, the economy, art and modern life.

He has drawn live from the Venice Art Biennale, the Olympic Games in London, The 2012 Republican Convention and he has drawn the New York City Marathon — while actually running it.

Niemann is the author of many books, most recently “Abstract City”. His latest project is an interactive, animated app called Petting Zoo.

In 2010, he was inducted into the Art Directors Club Hall Of Fame. His artworks have been subject to numerous exhibitions, most recently at Gallery Max Hetzler in Berlin.

Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere – Albert Einstein

Art & Culture

Art/Culture/Conservation – SUBMERGED in Art

Have you heard about The Museo Subacuático de Arte (MUSA), located off the coast of Isla Mujeres in Mexico’s Maya Riviera?

Taylor’s “SILENT EVOLUTION “is composed of 450 statues, making it the largest work in the exhibit. Photo: Jason deCaires Taylor

It’s the world’s largest underwater museum.

It looks like a pretty cool place. And, being underwater it has to be cool. I want to dive right in.

Composed of over 500 life-sized sculptures, MUSA offers incredible displays hidden 28 feet below the ocean’s surface. That means that the only way it can be explored is by diving or snorkeling. For me, having already been to Isla Mujeres, and since becoming an advanced certified scuba diver it would be an adventurous outing.

One of the statues in **“THE BANKER”** series. Photo: Jason deCares Taylor

The project began in 2009 as an effort to protect the endangered Mesoamerican Reef (the second-largest barrier reef in the world) by diverting divers and snorkelers to MUSA.

Roberto Díaz Abraham, one of the founders of the museum, describes it as an “art of conservation.” Each sculpture holds special nooks and crannies that help to support the breeding of marine life while providing a safe habitat.

Six artists helped to compose the works found in MUSA: Jason deCaires Taylor, who is also a co-founder of the museum, Roberto Díaz Abraham, Salvador Quiroz Ennis, Rodrigo Quiñones Reyes, Karen Salinas Martínez and Enrique Mireles, but a large portion of the works are by Taylor.

Taylor models his sculptures after local residents from his nearby fishing town of Puerto Morelos and covers them with a marine-grade cement consisting of a PH-neutral surface that promotes coral growth. He allows the plaster to dry before removing it and filling in the remainder of the sculptures.

Since they’re made with this marine-grade cement, the statues have become covered in algae and coral to make for a stunning sight.

Some of Taylor’s works are a satirical commentary on humanity. He created “The Banker,” a series of men in business suits submerging their heads in sand, after attending a climate-change conference in Cancun.

“It represents the loud acknowledgment made about the issue, but when it comes to taking action nobody wants to stick their neck out and do something about it,” Taylor said about the work.

Some of his works symbolize the growth of new life. “The Resurrection” was created using coral fans that had broken off during a thunderstorm in Cancun.

The Resurrection. Photo: Aquaworld — **The Resurrection**. Photo: Aquaworld

You’ll also find statues of people you might recognize. “The Anchors” is molded from the heads of “Today” show anchors Matt Lauer, Savannah Guthrie, Al Roker, and Natalie Morales, and NBC News correspondent Kerry Sanders.

But what’s most fascinating is that each of his works is built to aid in the protection and understanding of marine life. “The Ear” is a work installed with a hydrophone and hard drive. It allows researchers to study marine life via audio.

“Anthropocene,” or the Volkswagen, is made specifically for lobsters. Taylor created the piece after fisherman wiped out about 50 lobsters previously living in his “Silent Evolution” display. The car has holes to allow the shellfish to enter the sculpture, and inside it is stacked with shelving units where the creatures like to sleep.

MUSA offers an exploration into a world that’s remained a mystery.

“Two-thirds of our world is water, but there’s so much in that incredible world that’s still unknown,” said Taylor.

There are two different exhibits within the museum: Salon Manchones, which holds 475 sculptures and is 8m (27 ft.) deep and Punta Nizuc, which offers a shallow snorkeling area about 4m (13 ft.) deep and a semi-submersible boat as an alternative to diving.

MUSA is open year-round for public viewing; however, because the diving site is protected as a conservation area, you’ll need to sign up with one of the museum’s selected tour guides to access the site. Tickets cost about $60 for a two-hour tour.

If you can’t make it there in person, here’s some footage to mentally transport you to the stunning sight. https://youtu.be/lrpnxEHNW4Y

Source: businessinsider.com

STYLE

Style: Alexander the Great!

“WHEN I AM DEAD AND GONE, “PEOPLE WILL KNOW THE 21ST CENTURY WAS STARTED BY ME.”

Truthfully and spookily spoken by designer Alexander McQueen. Ever since taking his own very untimely life in 2010 at the age of 40, no one can deny that McQueen has given more life to the fashion industry than we’ve known in years. A true fashion artist!This statement is now written on a gallery wall at the Victoria & Albert Museum, in London, where the recently opened exhibition “Savage Beauty” showcases the design genius’s unsurpassed creations. (The show runs through August 2, 2015) If you’re in London and are a fashion fiend you must run to see it. A fashion designer friend raved about it.

For some people, Fashion is a Game! — For some people, **Fashion is a Game!**

The original “Savage Beauty” was held in New York, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute, in 2011. It debuted there to glowing reviews – visitors thought it was brilliant. More than 660,000 people attended the show, making it the Met’s eighth most popular exhibition ever.It is not surprising, then, that upon hearing about the V&A’s plans to re-stage “Savage Beauty,” many fashion insiders found it hard to imagine how a second outing — or the enthusiasm greeting it — could match what the Met achieved. But, as it turns out, Claire Wilcox, the London museum’s senior curator of fashion, has showcased McQueen’s prodigious talent in such a dramatic manner that even second-time viewers will be awed and moved. Without a doubt, “Savage Beauty” is the best fashion exhibition the V&A has put on in recent memory.

Creations by the late British designer Alexander McQueen are displayed during a preview at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, May 2, 2011. An exhibition of McQueen's creations titled Savage Beauty will be on display at the museum from May 4-July 31, 2011. REUTERS/Finbarr O'Reilly (UNITED STATES - Tags: FASHION SOCIETY) - RTR2LWR6 — Creations by the late British designer Alexander McQueen are displayed during a preview at the **Metropolitan Museum of Art** in New York, May 2, 2011. REUTERS/Finbarr O’Reilly

Wilcox has put more focus on McQueen’s London roots. Most of his degree show from Central Saint Martins is displayed along with original runway samples. (Missing in New York, many of these outfits were purchased by Isabella Blow, the fashion editor and McQueen mentor/muse who also committed suicide, in 2007.) Overall, this show displays many more designs than were seen at the Met, which is surprising since the U.K. usually proclaims small is beautiful and the U.S. big is best.The section labeled “Cabinet of Curiosities” is now twice as large, a vast black cavern where flickering videos of runway shows are interspersed with fantastical accessories against an auditory backdrop of hallucinatory music. One could spend hours in this room alone — especially if under the influence of a hallucinatory substance (and apparently that might be the case according to some of the fellow show-goers looking around the space).

As writer Clair Watson said after having departed from the Met’s “Savage Beauty” emotionally wrung-out: “I staggered out of this version completely overwhelmed — how much brilliance can a person take?” Which begs the question: How much more agonized brilliance could McQueen have lived with? Five years after his death, there is enough distance to acknowledge that, just as he said, he indeed make an indelible artistic mark that we can now see, more clearly.

Source: Clair Watson – “The Unbearable Beauty of McQueen” Photos: google images unless otherwise stated

Film Reviews

Contemplating what’s Real

“No chaos, damn it.” – Jackson Pollock.Hey, you never know…

Netflix: When trailer park resident Teri Horton bought a painting for five bucks that she was unable to fit through the doorway of her friends home, she tries to sell it in a garage sale. Little did she know it could be a genuine Jackson Pollock worth millions.

To get an idea of the art world’s opinion of Teri’s painting, the filmmakers showed it to Thomas Hoving, the legendary former director of New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art.

This film documents her dealings with the art world’s elitist establishment to authenticate the piece. Throughout the brash woman’s 15-year endeavor to validate the painting, the clash between stuffy art dealers and the cussin’, beer-drinkin’ Horton is funny, eye-opening and utterly unforgettable.

quotes by JP

Abstract painting is abstract. It confronts you. There was a reviewer a while back who wrote that my pictures didn’t have any beginning or any end. He didn’t mean it as a compliment, but it was. – Jackson Pollock

It doesn’t make much difference how the paint is put on as long as something has been said. Technique is just a means of arriving at a statement. – Jackson Pollock

He had a lot to say

Art & Culture

“Show Me Love” – an exhibit by Yayoi Kusama

Selfie Realization!

In 2013, Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Mirrored Room was the surprise hit of the art world, the piece that launched thousands of selfies on its way to becoming an international cultural phenomenon. By the end of her exhibition I Who Have Arrived in Heaven‘s run at David Zwirner Gallery in New York, the waits to see the show had grown to eight hours long. (On an average day, the exhibition received around 2,500 visitors, each allotted less than a minute of time in the space.) So the question hanging over her second Zwirner show, Give Me Love, was if Kusama could once again channel the same spirit.

At 28, Kusama left her native Japan for New York City like so many before and after her, with a one-way ticket and a dream. Like Yoko Ono and the FLUXUS movement, Kusama created a series of instructions and “invitations” that could be re-replicated, her most famous a series of be-in style protests in the late 60s that involved naked men and women, covered in polka dots, stationed outside the UN, the New York Stock Exchange, the Statue of Liberty, and elsewhere.

When she began to deteriorate both physically and emotionally in 1973, she returned to her native country for treatment, to commence what would turn into a decades-long stint in a mental hospital. As she recovered, she acquired her own unique, some have said therapeutic, visual style, the most recognizable her polka dot and infinity net works. With her success of the Infinity Mirrored Room, 60 years after her initial arrival in the city Kusama finally achieved the New York welcome she’d so longed for, an adoration that extended far beyond the cloistered world of the city’s arts institutions—the Guardian even called her the “world’s most popular artist of 2014.“ So what has she done for an encore?

The new show, which will be up through mid-June, features the artist’s intricate paintings, large-form pumpkin sculptures, and Obliteration Room, an interactive project inspired by a makeshift “American middle-class house.” The design is based on the urban planning initiatives of Levittown, New York, widely considered to be the first suburb and prototype for many of the country’s postwar communities. As part of Obliteration Room, which was previously staged in Australia, visitors are given colorful polka dot stickers to place wherever they like inside the all-white house. Eventually, the faux TV, dinner table, sofa, and desk will all become a pastiche of color swatches, transforming the calm, blank slate into a space that is overwhelming with radiant life. Gallery visitors become willing participants in both the project’s destruction and renewal, in keeping with Kusama’s prior themes of life, death, and rebirth.

The most recent reason for Kusama’s resurgence is the social media effect. Infinity Mirrored Room was one of the most Instagrammed and selfied art events of 2013, and perhaps of all time. But you can’t measure her influence merely in likes and reblogs, says Hanna Schouwink, a senior partner at David Zwirner.

“[Kusama]’s a genius, someone who’s really been able to tap into what it means to be human, whether you live in America or Tokyo or Russia,” explains Schowink. “People from all over the world tune in to her message. Every museum, every single venue where these shows have shown, has broken [attendance] records for its institution. And then she breaks them doubly. It’s a phenomenon that I don’t think we’ve ever seen before.”

Antwaun Sargent, Jiajia Fei, and another visitor at 'Give Me Love' — Antwaun Sargent, Jiajia Fei, and another visitor at ‘Give Me Love’

David Zwirner himself says, “Very few artists have this gift to really transcend the art world. It’s rare. Jeff Koons has that gift, of course. What Kusama does is very life-affirming. It’s very positive, and it asks you to enter. It’s not opaque, and she doesn’t hold back as an artist. She’s had difficult times in her life, and I think that transports to the work and people really react to it.”

Though the sheer volume of Infinity Room selfies puts it in a league with such tourist traps as the Statue of Liberty and the Brooklyn Bridge, the photo-friendly nature of the exhibit wasn’t a calculated move by Zwirner to court the smartphone set.

But why do visitors respond to Kusama’s work? Easy: “It just makes people happy.”

And as is often the case with happiness, sometimes you’ve just got to wait.

Yayoi Kusama’s Give Me Love is on view at David Zwirner Gallery in New York through June 13, 2015 with extended hours during New York Frieze Week.

Source – Story and Photos: Laura Feinstein, Brooklyn-based editor and writer for Vice.com

From me:

I Want Happiness! According to Buddha, If you take away “I” which is “ego” and you take away “want” which is “desire” all you’re left with is Happiness.