MOMENT/C

Zurbarán

2012-01-06T14:06:00.000+01:00

Francisco de Zurbarán, "Still life. Bodegón" (1632-42)

Look at these objects. Simply placed next to each other on an anonymous surface, against a dark background. Vessels that were quite mundane in the middle of the 17th century when Zurbarán lined them up and made light shine in from the left. To us they are more exotic, but we can still sense the ordinariness that imbue them.

This simple, little painting was the one that made the strongest impression on me when I visited The Prado almost 20 years ago. That must have been because it communicates so clearly and directly. There are no allusions, no allegory that needs deciphering, just each object presented in its own right, all of them on equal terms.

And then there is the notion that these mundane objects carry a spiritual potential. - Through their simple beauty? - By the light that they reflect? Zurbarán's contemporary, Saint Teresa of Ávila said that "God may be found even among the cooking pots".

Francisco de Zurbarán, "Agnus Dei"

- Or as a lamb. On a slate. Ready to be butchered. According to the title, this lamb is the Lamb of God, Jesus: "Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world" (John 1:29).

Again, Zurbarán's simple and direct rendering makes his message all the more powerful. Like the vessels above, this lamb is powerfully illuminated. Its tangled wool shines, and it retains its dignity, even when it lies there with all four legs trapped together.

How fitting to look at this painting today, at Epiphany. Later this evening I will remove my Christmas decorations and thus fully be on my way onwards in the new year. Hopefully, Zurbarán's elevation of everyday objects may inform my daily life to come. I wish to develop my ability to see beauty in the small things.

Francisco de Zurbarán, "Still Life with Lemons, Oranges and a Rose", 1633. Photo from Agricola

Against the backdrop of the top two paintings, this final still life looks almost too extravagant. But here, too, there is stillness and mystery. As cited at Agricola:

[. . .] its astonishing realism: every detail in every object is perfectly rendered without the objects losing their strong human quality, especially the basket which is truly exquisite.

[. . .]

It is this precise balance of solid, beautiful objects in empty space that creates the deep sense of stillness, purity, and mystery. And standing receptively in front of this painting evokes the same within the viewer.

Christian Marclay, "The Clock"

2011-08-31T11:36:00.000+02:00

Christian Marclay, "The Clock", 2010. Photo from jockohomo.

Christian Marclay's 24 hour film work titled "The Clock" has been hailed as one of few good reasons to go see this year's Venice Biennale. It has earned Marclay the Golden Lion Award for the best artist in the Biennale, and it has generated a lot of interest in other venues where it has been shown. At times there were long lines of people on the street waiting to get in to see it when it was shown at the Paula Cooper Gallery in New York this winter (see Jerry Saltz's review about not standing the wait in cold weather, and Ben Davis about not getting in at all).

Christian Marclay, "The Clock", 2010. Photo from ARTINFO.

Most critics are stunned by the giant proportions of this work. Apparently, it has taken Marclay two years and the help of six full time assistants to piece together thousands of film clips that add up to 24 hours of footage. When the film is shown in galleries, it is synchronized with actual time, so that "film time" becomes "real time".

Christian Marclay, "The Clock", 2010.
Photo from MODERN ART NOTES.

So far, I have just seen one unfavourable review of "The Clock". - Tyler Green at MODERN ART NOTES: "The Clock’s facileness renders explicable the crowds that flocked to Paula Cooper Gallery for the work. Contemporary art is in the throes of a salon moment, a moment during which once-difficult conceptual work is watered down enough to be accessible for the art market and its hangers-on."

By watching the video clip from BBC above, or the excerpt from the film itself below, it may be possible to judge whether Tyler Green is right when he says that the concept of "The Clock" is just too easily accessible. - Or whether Christian Marclay's work is a rare example of complexity made beautifully simple, - to give a unique experience of time, that very precious commodity that we tend to take for granted and at the same time constantly are conscious of.

Since I have not had a chance to see "The Clock" "live", I was happy to discover these YouTube clips. They give a certain impression of what the work is about. But flicking through YouTube, watching a little here and a little there while wondering if I really have time to be surfing around, that makes it quite clear that a crucial part of experiencing "The Clock" in a gallery setting must be the decision one has made to sit down quietly in the dark for an extended period of time. - To just stay there and watch, without doing anything else, and thus become aware of each precious moment.

The Holmsbu Painters

2011-08-15T16:59:00.000+02:00

Oluf Wold-Torne, "Landscape from Holmsbu", 1911. Photo from DigitaltMuseum.

I'll stretch my summer by looking at paintings from Holmsbu in Eastern Norway. The one above was painted by Oluf Wold-Torne in the summer of 1911, the first of many summers when he and other artists came to Holmsbu to work.

By blurring out details from the foreground and simplifying the foliage and shrubs, Wold-Torne leads our attention towards the hill and mountains on the other side of the fjord. Horizontal lines create a calm sensation, and the central stretch of water is framed by trees on the right and sailboats on the left. A large portion of the painting is blue sky which is hazy enough to render that feeling of summer comfort and reverie that I so much want to hold on to now that fall is approaching.

Thorvald Erichsen, "Fra Holmsbu", 1931. Photo from Gwpa.

In this painting by Thorvald Erichsen some of the pink rock that is such a characteristic feature of the Holmsbu area, can be seen bathing in the evening light across the fjord.

Photo from Drammens Museum.

A gallery that houses works by Oluf Wold-Torne, Thorvald Erichsen and Henrik Sørensen (who are considered the three most central Holmsbu Painters) has been built in the woods that stretch inland from the fjord. It is clad in the local pink granite, and it lies well camouflaged on top of a steep trail.

Photo from Drammens Museum.

Holmsbu Billedgalleri, 1963-73, architect: Bjart Mohr. Photo from essential events.

At the back of the building a large window lets the untouched landscape become an important part of the total aesthetic experience that includes architecture, landscape and paintings, among which some depict the same landscape as one can see through the window (like the one below).

Henrik Sørensen, "Trollura i Jahrskogen", 1933. Photo from Drammens Museum.

Elmgreen & Dragset, "The One & The Many"

2011-06-30T18:23:00.000+02:00

Elmgreen & Dragset, "The One & The Many", 2011. Photo from culture and life.

I like artworks that demand participation: Settings that I become a part of or works that are only realized if I engage myself in them.

I very much enjoy showing "Boy Scout" (2008) to kids that visit Bergen Art Museum, where I work as a Museum Lecturer.

And there are several works by Elmgreen & Dragset that I wish that I had had a chance to see: "Just a Single Wrong Move" (2004), "Prada Marfa" (2005), and "The Collectors" (2009).

So I think that I will just have to go to Rotterdam to experience "The One & The Many" before it closes on September 25.

Elmgreen & Dragset, "The One & The Many", 2011. Photo from culture and life.

Then I believe I will have to go by boat to an old submarine wharf, where I will walk down a spooky "subway" tunnel that will take me to a ghetto-like city scape inhabited by people that I would not feel safe to encounter in real life.

Elmgreen & Dragset, "The One & The Many", 2011. Photo from culture and life.

I will go for a ride on the Ferris wheel and peek through the windows to see what the tenants in the apartment building are up to, and if possible, I will enter the building to take a closer look.

According to Sjarel Ex, who presents "The One & The Many" in the following video, I will get so engaged in the stories that are played out in the work, that I will continue thinking about the people I have encountered long after I have left the place.

In this next video, Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset talk about "The One & The Many" and another work they will have going for the next year in front of the Rotterdam City Hall: "It's Never Too Late To Say Sorry".

Christoph Marthaler, "plus minus zero"

2011-06-06T19:45:00.002+02:00

Christoph Marthaler, "plus minus zero". Photo from der neue Merker.

This year's Bergen International Festival is nearing its end, and I have not had time to see by far as many shows as I would have wanted to. But last night I went to a performance that was presented as theatre: Christoph Marthaler's "plus minus zero". What a lucky choice! - Though maybe not a very likely one, since I had read an unfavorable review in Bergens Tidende the same morning. Too bad that paper sends a theatre critic to review a work like this, and not an art critic. Because complaining about lack of storyline and coherence seems to me completely beside the point as long as Marthaler communicates precisely through his break with theatre convention.

Christoph Marthaler, "plus minus zero". Photo from NCF.

The seemingly incoherent mix of scenography viewed as installation art; choir music performed in human tableaux; text presented in different languages, and thus enhanced, sometimes like poetry; simple movement repeated in dancelike patterns; Inuit stories told without translation (but with clues given through body language); the slowness, stillness and meditation; - it all suggests notions of a world view so different from western rationale that we simply cannot understand it through linear, analytic communication.

Trine Mauritz Eriksen, "Moderato Cantabile"

2011-05-22T16:28:00.001+02:00

I went to Svalbard for 10 days this Easter. It was my first time there, and I had expected to see spectacular landscape and beautiful light. But I had not been able to imagine just how intense and different the arctic light would be, and I was surprised by the calm, cloister-like feeling I got from moving around in the wide, white expanse.

With no trees and simple, consistent lines, the Svalbard landscape reminded me of the hills in New Mexico, the way Georgia O'Keeffe painted them.

Kåre Tveter, "Innover breene". Photo from artnet.

One evening, as I sat in a cabin looking across the ice covered fjord at very light blue mountains that were barely discernible from the late night (but light!) evening sky, it struck me how difficult it must be to convey such simple beauty in painting. I know that many artists have tried, and I saw quite a few attempts in Longyearbyen, but most often I thought the result became too sweet and cliché.

However, in the departure hall in Longyearbyen Airport, a three part work by Trine Mauritz Eriksen sums up the arctic light and landscape very well. It is titled "Moderato Cantabile", a musical term that I think covers a similar feeling to that calm, almost meditative mood I mentioned above.

Trine Mauritz Eriksen, "Moderato Cantible", Svalbard Airport, Photo: Birger Amundsen.

Having experienced some grey days during my stay, and knowing that winter in the Arctic is completely dark, save the Northern Lights, I very much enjoyed the play of light and subtle colors in her non-figurative interpretation, made from twisted strips of colored wool.

Kurt Jonannessen and Jørgen Knudsen, "Blu 5"

2011-04-11T11:10:00.001+02:00

Kurt Johannessen and Jørgen Knudsen, "Blu 5", 1995.

Again I want to show something I saw a long time ago. "Blu 5" by Kurt Johannessen and Jørgen Knudsen has stuck with me for more than a decade (like this and this and several other works that I have labelled "general").

I do not remember the whole succession of "Blu 5". In fact, I do not remember much of it at all: Very little of the sound and only one image stands out clearly. But I do remember the feeling of anticipation as I stood together with other people along the wall in Bergen Kunsthall waiting to see what would happen.

And I remember my awareness of Kurt Johannessen's presence and his slow movements, mixed with an uneasy consciousness of my own presence in the room.

Kurt Johannessen and Jørgen Knudsen, "Blu 5", 1995.

There was a film projector towards which Kurt Johannessen moved very slowly, with arms lifted out to the sides and no shirt on. Then, when he had finally reached the focus point of the projected image, butterflies emerged on his stomach. And he let them flutter.

This is such a simple concept, verging on a cliché. The solution to that slightly tense uncertainty about what the performance would evolve into was an illustration of that very feeling: Butterflies in the stomach.

Kurt Johannessen has produced many books with short instructions - "Exercises" - that are suggestions for actions so simple that one may at first scuff at them, before one realizes that they may carry great poetic potential.

"Blu 5" and the land art piece I presented about a week ago have a similar quality. They are simple and grounded by very literal references. In "Blu 5" a metaphor collapses into a literal image, and thus it becomes poetry.

Kurt Johannessen, "Steinen" ("The Rock")

2011-04-02T19:50:00.002+02:00

Kurt Johannessen, "Steinen" ("The Rock"), 2008. Photo by Unni Seim Eidsnes, from zeth.

Hiking the barren landscape 85 kilometers northeast of Bergen, 900 meters above sea level, one may come across a gilded rock. Among many rocks of similar size and shape, this single one has received a coat of gold as a token of gratitude from the artist Kurt Johannessen.

He has turned one rock into a piece of art, and indirectly, the surrounding rocks and landscape become parts of the work. The gilded rock (art) and the other rocks (nature) mutually define each other, but it is hard to tell exactly where the piece ends. - How much of the landscape becomes part of it?

Kurt Johannessen, "Steinen" ("The Rock"), 2008. Photo by Unni Seim Eidsnes, from zeth.

I have hiked mountains close to this one, but I have never seen "The Rock". Now that I know it is there, I will seek it out some time this summer. But then my experience will lack the element of surprise that I would have felt if I had bumped into it unwittingly. - How great that must be:

- To imagine that the gold is solid (what a treasure!), but then also to know that "The Rock" belongs where it is.
- To walk along enjoying the beautiful scenery and then suddenly be confronted by ART, - a different kind of beauty.

***
Dag Sveen has written an interesting text about "The Rock" (in Norwegian), from which I have borrowed.
And on Kurt Johannessen's home page the gilding process is documented, and there are directions to the site.

Two more Kabakov installations

2011-03-17T20:43:00.000+01:00

Ilya and Emilia Kabakov, "The Man Who Never Threw Anything Away
(The Garbage Man)", 1988. Photo from artnet.

"The Garbage Man (The Man Who Never Threw Anything Away)"

Unlike the Kabakov installation I showed on Tuesday, this one can be entered. Three rooms that allude a kommunalka are filled with junk that has been collected by the imaginary owner of the apartment. Everything is neatly labelled and organized on tables, in cabinets, and on charts that cover the walls.

What would otherwise be considered waste is turned into art that can make us reflect on just how much junk we leave behind. And the stuffiness and dusty feeling underneath naked light bulbs becomes a nightmare where we never get rid of all that junk.

Or...
We become touched by the love this person has put into his tedious archival work, and by the memories that can be attached to details from our own past.

Ilya and Emilia Kabakov, "Treatment with Memories", 1997. Photo from artnet.

"Treatment With Memories"

I saw this installation in the 1997 Whitney Biennial, and have thought of it many times since.

Walking through a corridor with fainted "hospital green" colored walls, I reached a barren room where simple iron beds were turned towards one projector each, showing images from the absent clients' early lives. Supposedly as treatment against dementia.

But there were no other signs of human life in the room, just an eerie notion that death had already arrived, and that the images that flickered in the light from the projectors would continue as eternal loops.

***
"The Garbage Man" can be visited at The National Museum in Oslo until January 15, 2012

Ilya Kabakov, "The Man Who Flew into Space from his Apartment"

2011-03-15T19:22:00.000+01:00

Ilya Kabakov, "The Man Who Flew into Space from his Apartment", 1985.
Photo from Kunstkritikk.

Ilya Kabakov creates installations that tell stories from the lives of fictional characters. "The Man Who Flew into Space from his Apartment" consists of two rooms: The hallway in a communal Soviet apartment, and the room from which the story's protagonist has taken off into space through the ceiling and the roof, using the catapult he has made by attaching a seat to bed springs and rubber bands.

Ilya Kabakov, "The Man Who Flew into Space from his Apartment", 1985.
Photo from Cold War Art.

The walls in his very simple room have propaganda posters plastered all over. There are also sketches of his contraption and his expected orbit, and he has made a model of his town and apartment building, from which a metal string indicates his flight into space.

Ilya Kabakov, "The Man Who Flew into Space from his Apartment", 1985.
Photo from comixcube.

In the grimly lit hallway outside his room, yellowing pages tell the following story:

The lovely inhabitant of this room, as becomes clear from the story his neighbors tells, was obsessed by a dream of a lonely flight into space, and in all probability, he realized this dream of his, his "grand project".

The entire cosmos, according to the thoughts of the inhabitant of this room, was permeated by streams of energy leading upward somewhere. His project was conceived in an effort to hook up with these streams and fly away with them.
A catapult, hung from the corners of the room, would give this new "astronaut", who was sealed in a plastic sac, his initial velocity and further up, at a height of 40-50 meters, he would land in a stream of energy through which the Earth was passing at that moment as it moved along its orbit.
[...]
Everything takes place late at night, when all the other inhabitants of the communal apartment are sound asleep. One can imagine their horror, fright, bewilderment. The local police are summoned, an investigation begins, and the tenants search everywhere, in the yard, on the street, but he is nowhere to be found.

***
"The Man Who Flew into Space from his Apartment" is part of the exhibition Take Me to Your Leader! at Bergen Art Museum (until May 8, 2011).

Virginia Woolf, "To the Lighthouse"

2011-03-07T21:12:00.001+01:00

It has been a while.
Lately, I have spent more time talking about art than writing about it. - And then I drove into the snowy mountains, parked my car, went further up and away on a snowmobile, and skied for a week, far offline...

When I got back to town yesterday, there was no snow left; the pavements were dry, and there was a hint of spring in the light evening air. But when I woke up this morning, it was snowing again.

Sometimes - often in the mornings - I read random passages from To the Lighthouse, - just because Virginia Woolf wrote so beautifully. Filling myself up with her prose makes a good start to any day, and today I happened to come across this poetic description of spring:

The spring without a leaf to toss, bare and bright like a virgin fierce in her chastity, scornful in her purity, was laid out on fields wide-eyed and watchful and entirely careless of what was done or thought by the beholders. [...]

As summer neared, as the evenings lengthened, there came to the wakeful, the hopeful, walking the beach, stirring the pool, imaginations of the strangest kind - of flesh turned to atoms which drove before the wind, of stars flashing in their hearts, of cliff, sea, cloud, and sky brought purposely together to assemble outwardly the scattered parts of the vision within. In those mirrors, the minds of men, in those pools of uneasy water, in which clouds for ever turn and shadows form, dreams persisted, and it was impossible to resist the strange intimation which every gull, flower, tree, man and woman, and the white earth itself seemed to declare (but if questioned at once to withdraw) that good triumphs, happiness prevails, order rules; or to resist the extraordinary stimulus to range hither and thither in search of some absolute good, some crystal of intensity, remote from the known pleasures and familiar virtues, something alien to the processes of domestic life, single, hard, bright, like a diamond in the sand, which would render the possessor secure. Moreover, softened and acquiescent, the spring with her bees humming and gnats dancing threw her cloak about her, veiled her eyes, averted her head, and among passing shadows and flights of small rain seemed to have taken upon her a knowledge of the sorrows of mankind.

Cerith Wyn Evans

2011-02-15T20:59:00.001+01:00

Cerith Wyn Evans, "Untitled", 2010, one part of the installation S=U=P=E=R=S=T=R=U=C=T=U=R=E
("Trace me back to some loud, shallow, chill, underlying motive's overspill") Photo from Bergen Kunsthall.

I walk between trunks of light. And I unwittingly slow down my pace.

The light itself is warm and comforting - not too bright - and I notice that it changes slowly. While one trunk is almost completely dimmed, another one reaches a peak of brightness.

It is as if those poles of light make the entire room radiant with a subtle, otherworldly energy. And when I stand close, I can feel a round and friendly - I'll almost say loving - heat.

But there is also sound.

- Can sound be warm? - Can I wrap it around me like a thick - but lightweight - comforter?

The entire room oscillates. - Walls like bellows that breathe very calmly. - And a small wood of light-trunks that grow (eternally?) into the ceiling, from far below the floor.

Dan Colen, "Peanuts"

2011-02-08T20:10:00.005+01:00

Dan Colen, "Silent Treatment", gum on canvas, 2010. Photo from afmuseet.

When you Google Pictures search "Dan Colen" you get as many photos of cool art dudes partying as you do artworks he has made. That makes me apprehensive. - Like I was when I arrived at his Astrup Fearnley Museum "Peanuts" show last weekend.

And his chewing gum pictures confirmed my prejudice. They give off an air of art school adolescence, and are not very different from this painting which he has found and included in his show:

Dan Colen, "The Big Swirl", found painting, 2006.
Photo from Joshua Abelow Art Blog.

Colen and the group of art buddies he used to hang out with have been called the "Bowery School", from The Bowery in New York. For a short while in the 1990s I lived on St. Mark's place (close to The Bowery) together with aspiring artists of many different disciplines. And often I would see helpless artwork like the one above put out on the sidewalk to be chucked into a garbage truck.

What was interesting, I thought, when I saw "Silent Treatment" and "The Big Swirl" hanging next to each other in the Astrup Fearnley exhibition, was that Colen's chewing gum canvas only barely rests on the right side of the boarder towards a less than mediocre art school student's desperate attempt to come up with something original ... - Chewing gum!

Dan Colen, "Self-portrait as the wanderer
(as I pause to ponder: do real men break hearts?
I decide yes! They do. Only to later change my mind.)",
oil on found painting, 2004. Photo from afmuseet.

There are quite a few found paintings in the show to which Colen has painted additions. - Like the one above that I show in a small version to protect under age viewers...

This hangs on a wall all by itself, and becomes quite poetic - even touching - by way of its title.

Dan Colen, "Eviction Party", flowers on canvas, 2010. Photo from afmuseet.

The flower pictures radiate a similar poetic sensibility. - Those fresh, but perishable colors smeared into an unprimed canvas ...

Dan Colen, "The Whole Enchilada", 2010. Photo from Kunstkritikk.

And even this knocked over flagpole becomes an image of general sadness and loss, rather than a political statement.

All this subtle and potent poetry finally managed to outshine Colen's insisting cool, and it proved my visit to the Astrup Fearnley Museum worth while.

With this new - more positive - attitude I was even able to find something interesting in his banal text paintings:

Dan Colen, "Holy Shit", Photo from jameswagner.

"Holy Shit" placed upside down is more interesting than "Holy Shit" placed the right way.

Dan Colen, "Holy Shit", Photo from Peres Projects.

And "Holy Shit" mirrored is more interesting than "Holy Shit" upside down.

Dan Colen, "Holy Shit" t-shirt, Photo from Urban Outfitters.

But "Holy Shit" on t-shirts from Urban Outfitters becomes far too much!
(It is this consumerism - latent in all the text paintings - that makes them annoying.)

***
(Norwegian readers should check out Kjetil Røed's excellent review of "Peanuts" at Kunstkritikk.)

Tino Sehgal, "This Progress"

2011-02-01T11:50:00.002+01:00

Photo from Kunstnernes Hus.

I was not disappointed.
My expectations were high. I came all the way from Bergen just to listen and experience. And I am happy I did.

First I listened to the talk on Friday.
About his interest in dance as an activity that does not produce material products (which he considers problematic because one cannot engage with them). Inter human communication is much more interesting, Sehgal says. And he does not want his works to be documented (to be made into material products) because one has to experience them first hand. The quality of the experience, says Sehgal, is more important than access to information about it.

When I came back to experience "This Progress" on Saturday, I understood better his aversion towards documentation. Until then, I had just read about his work and seen a few illicit photographs of it. What I had read and seen made me very interested in its conceptual aspects, but having experienced "This Progress" live, I realise that the gap between contemplating his concept intellectually and actually experiencing it is much wider than it is in the instance of object based conceptual works, like Joseph Kosuth's "One and Three Chairs":

Joseph Kosuth, "One and Three Chairs", 1965. Photo from MoMA.

Elsewhere in this blog I have stated that what I enjoy most about art is the way it can alter my perspectives. A painting, a photograph or a video can make me think, feel and understand something in a different way than a factual text can do. But that kind of interaction with a material work is very dependent on my own initiative and thus limits itself to my projections of meaning. For instance, Joseph Kosuth's "One and Three Chairs" cannot ask me questions that I myself do not think of while standing in front of it.

Tino Sehgal's "This Progress", however, can (on a very literal level) ask me questions, and that is exactly what it does.

As I entered Kunstnernes Hus on Saturday, a young girl (11 years old?) came over to me and said "This is a work by Tino Sehgal." Thinking about it now, that statement itself induces many questions: What is the work? Is it you? Is it you talking to me? Is it me answering you? Well, I did not think about all this then, because I had to focus on the question she actually asked me: "What is progress?"

From there on, the piece could have taken many directions. I could have decided that this was not something I wanted to take part in, or I could have given a nonsensical answer and thus sabotaged (?) the intention behind the work, but either way I would have already become a part of it.

Nice and clever as I want to be, I tried my best to give as good an answer as possible using terms that I thought the young girl would understand. And strolling through one of the downstairs galleries at Kunstnernes Hus with this sympathetic young girl was very enjoyable, even though I was slightly distracted by self-conscious thoughts about being partially responsible for the execution of the work ...

But I warmed up quickly enough, and really got going when I was handed over to a young man (around 20) who asked me how I have experienced progress in my own life. He took me up the back stairs to one of the second floor galleries, and there I was handed over again, to a woman (around 40) who listened patiently to a couple of stories I told her as an answer to her statement that people should not keep cats or dogs as pets ... By the time I had to leave (the man (around 60) who was the last one I talked to was told by Sehgal that he had to go talk to somebody else), I had really taken advantage of the chance to just ramble on ...

When it was over, I sat down for some lunch to digest the experience.
I thought about the interpreters (the people who talked to me): How demanding it must be to stay present and attentive towards so many different people throughout the day! Do they consider the conversations rewarding or just hard work? How much are the conversations really worth as constructive interaction, and how much are they "tainted" by the excitement inherent in the situation (the thought of being a piece of art ...)?

Well, while I was sitting there in the ground floor restaurant looking out at the beautiful winter sun on the trees and snow across the street, I nourished a very good feeling: I was moved by the interaction itself, - the simple beauty of meeting four people I newer knew, in a setting that in its strict limitations became liberating. When else do I get to talk to complete strangers about important matters without having to wonder about their agenda, the impression they have of me, etc.?

I was tempted to go again, to try once more. But I decided I had had my chance, and I was afraid the experience might be watered down a second time. It would perhaps have been interesting, though, to see what would be different if other "interpreters" had taken me around, or if I had come on a day that was not the busy opening day. (Jerry Saltz did five rounds of "This Progress" at the Guggenheim and managed to make the artwork cry ...)

Dan Perjovschi, "WHAT HAPPENED TO US?"

2011-01-21T19:38:00.001+01:00

Photo from THE L MAGAZINE

Another MoMA project.
The one I showed the other day was number 50. This one was number 85, and it was up on the tall white wall in MoMA's lofty atrium during the summer of 2007.

Dan Perjovschi had drawn his cartoons directly on the wall (see video below), and they were printed in this newspaper, of which everybody was free to take a copy. - So of course I did :-)

And since then, I have used it as an introduction to US politics in all the English classes I have taught. I think the image above forms a particularly useful starting point for looking into US politics and for taking a look at how the US perceives the rest of the world...

The images below are political on a more general (and a more or less personal) level.

Photo from artnet

Photo from Colectivo BolaExtra

Photo from pointofview

Photo from PAVILION

Tom Friedman

2011-01-17T20:52:00.002+01:00

Tom Friedman, "Untitled", 1990. A partially used bar of soap inlaid with a spiral of pubic hair. Photo from Satchi Gallery.

Getting back to a method I have used before:
I scan my memory for art that I have seen a long time ago. The works that I still remember have made a strong and lasting impression. - Maybe that means that they are particularly interesting, and that you will enjoy seeing them here?

I saw Tom Friedman's sculptural work in the project room at the Museum of Modern Art in 1995, and this bar of soap was the one that fascinated me the most.

- Such a mundane object aesthetiziced by a neatly constructed spiral of pubic hair. - One of the least pleasant encounters you may have in daily life - somebody else's hair on a bar of soap - is turned into enjoyment of a beautiful little sculpture...

- Or does your gut reaction overrule the aesthetic potential?

- Can you see how there seem to be different shades of color in the hair, and how the narrowing spiral on the bar of soap creates an illusion that draws your gaze to the very core of it?

- And what about the white soap as symbol of "the pure", whereas the dark pubic hair tends to symbolize something not so pure...

Tom Friedman, "Untitled (Self-Portrait)", 1994. Carved aspirin. Photo from artnet Magazine.

This work and the next one play on our expectations of scale.

It is impressive that Friedman has managed to carve a little sculpture from an aspirin. But why such a small self portrait? ... One that we could swallow to ease a headache...

A little white sculpture on a white wall, - but still very noticeable. ... Maybe just because it is so little.

Tom Friedman, "Untitled", 1990. Bubble gum, 12,7 cm diameter. Photo from Satchi Gallery.

- Quite a large ball of gum... - Sore jaw muscles?

Look at the subtle nuances of pink color. - And that even, shiny surface...

Tom Friedman. Photo from playgrounddoor.

I cannot remember either of these last two works from the 1995 project at MoMA. They may not have been there. But they are beautiful.

The red, gold and blue in this pencil sculpture, - and the beautiful proportions... a perfect grid....

Tom Friedman, "Untitled", 1993. Plastic cups, 101,6 cm diameter. Photo from Satchi Gallery.

This circle of plastic cups looks like it has some very interesting plastic properties...

Edvard Munch, "Munch - Master Prints" at Bergen Art Museum

2011-01-14T17:29:00.001+01:00

Edvard Munch, "The Scram", photo from Trykk of foto 3SF.

Edvard Munch made so many versions of "The Scream", from which so many reproductions and so much paraphernalia have been produced, that I find it very hard to look at this work with fresh eyes, - even when I stand face to face with one of the original versions at a museum.

- As I did yesterday, in Bergen Art Museum's exhibition "Munch - Master Prints". Unfortunately, I have not been able to find any downloadable version of that particular work, but you can see a detail of it here.

What struck me when I viewed the image from a distance (it hangs on the end wall in a narrow rectangular room), was that even though it is a lithograph, it resembles a woodcut. The strong vertical and diagonal lines in the bottom half of the picture look like they are carved out of wood, and they form a dramatic contrast to the softly waving horizontal lines in the quiet background landscape.

Seeing a carefully hand colored version of this print was quite refreshing. Just a few blue and orange lines between all the black ones make a great difference. The subtle orange color that Munch added to the sky, gives it a warm evening glow, which is reflected on the contours of the suffering face.

Edvard Munch, "The Sick Child", 1896, lithography. Photo from Listen. (Same image, but not the same print.)

While there was only one version of "The Scream" in the "Munch - Master Prints" exhibition, many of the titles were shown in several versions, for instance "The Sick Child". It was interesting to see prints with different color combinations placed right next to each other. But what I found most enjoyable in all the "Sick Child" prints, was the way their simple composition as well as Munch's rendering of light, made me focus on the girl's face and on the reflection right in front of her face.

Edvard Munch, "The Sick Child", 1885-86. Photo from Nasjonalmuseet.

- Much more than I do when I look at the "Sick Child" painting Munch finished ten years earlier.

"Edvard Munch: Master Prints", National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, July 31 - Oct 31 2010. Photo from France24.

The prints are hung in series, on dark walls, with scarce lighting, in much the same way as you can see on this photo from a similar exhibition at the US National Gallery of Art. And walking quietly through the darkness where the prints are lit by dim spotlights, you become intimately confronted by eerie and private subject matter.

Five different "Madonna" prints are shown, but I have seen that image so many times already, and this exhibition did not make me discover anything new about it. So instead of posting a "Madonna" here, I will show you a print that I cannot remember having seen before.

Edvard Munch, "Moonlight", woodcut, 1896. Photo from A Polar Bear's Tale.

There are three versions of "Moonlight" in the exhibition, and they are quite different in regard to the rendering of light and the visibility of wood structure. - Quite amazing how Munch has managed to make the woman's face glow with moonlight by carving wood and putting some ink on it, don't you think?

Tino Sehgal at Kunstnernes Hus in Oslo

2011-01-11T20:09:00.001+01:00

In yesterday's post I complained that I have never had a chance to experience a work by Tino Sehgal. Well, today I found out that he will come to Kunstnernes Hus in Oslo at the end of this month for a conversation with two art historians (January 28), and an exhibition (January 29 - March 6).

So should I book a flight that takes 50 minutes or spare the environment by sitting on a train enjoying mountains and woods for 6-7 hours?

Tino Sehgal

2011-01-10T14:19:00.002+01:00

One very positive consequence of blogging is learning a lot from blogs that I read. And while having been mostly stuck in Bergen, Norway the last ten years, I have missed out on quite a bit. For instance: Tino Sehgal.

David M. Heald © SRGF, New York. (the village VOICE)

~~This (illicit!) photo~~ (replaced by a photo of the Guggenheim rotunda) shows his living sculpture "Kiss", in which dancers were hired to execute a very slowly evolving embrace that lasted throughout the museum's opening hours, every day for a month and a half. The work is owned by the Museum of Modern Art and was loaned to the Guggenheim as part of its 50th Anniversary celebrations early last year. But there exists no official photographic documentation of "Kiss" or of this particular effectuation of it, and as an attempt to counteract the material commodification of artworks, Sehgal sells his works exclusively by oral agreement, without any written contracts. (For critical comments about this strategy see: ARTslanT and Escape Into Life.)

While this and one other work by Sehgal were shown, the Guggenheim rotunda was empty for the fist time since it opened to the public 51 years ago (there were no other artworks to be seen), and the photo gives a good impression of Frank Lloyd Wright's beautiful architecture (which I mentioned in a recent post about Felix Gonzalez-Torres). Sehgal's work not only thrives from being shown at the Guggenheim like Gonzalez-Torres's did in 1995, the second work by Sehgal that was shown there last year requires participation from the audience in a similar way as Gonzalez-Torres's work does.

That second work is titled "This Progress", and exists only as individual conversations with the audience. Actors of different ages (a child at the bottom and a person in late middle age at the top) accompany visitors on their way up the spiraling rotunda while engaging them in conversations about progress. I would have loved to try this out myself and to describe my experience here, but since I have not had the chance to take part in "This Progress", I will rely on Holland Cotter's story from The New York Times:

It begins when you walk a short way up the rotunda ramp. A child comes over to greet you. My greeter, a girl of 9 or 10, introduced herself as Giuliana and stated matter-of-factly, “This is a piece by Tino Sehgal.” She invited me to follow her and asked if she could ask me a question. “What is progress?” I gave a broad answer, then at her request, a clarifying example. We went further up the ramp.

Soon we were joined by a young man, a teenager, who said his name was Will. Giuliana carefully and accurately paraphrased for him my response to her question and slipped away. I walked on with Will, who commented on my comments on progress, which prompted me to try to refine my initial thoughts.

About halfway up the rotunda, Will was replaced by Tom, whom I took to be in his mid-30s and who introduced a new topic.

He had read a scientific report that morning saying that dinosaurs, long envisioned as drab-gray and green, might have been brightly colored, even gaudily striped. We had both, we said, been fascinated by dinosaurs as kids, as was his young son today. And now everyone would have to reimagine them, though artists already had done that. So Maurice Sendak’s “Where the Wild Things Are” turns out to be natural history. Art beats science to the punch.

As we neared the last stretch of the ramp, Tom handed me over to Bob, who was, like me, in late middle age and who broached another topic. He had just returned from Bulgaria where he had talked with a range of people over 20 about their feelings about the state of their country and lives. He found, he said, a pervasive nostalgia for life under Communism, a yearning for a society that promised to take care of everyone.

The Guggenheim Museum says about this requirement for the audience to participate that "a visitor is no longer only a passive spectator, but one who bears a responsibility to shape and at times to even contribute to the actual realization of the piece".

Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker

2011-01-07T18:01:00.000+01:00

I have been searching widely on the web - but in vain - for a video of Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker's "Stella" (1990). When she was visiting Bergen with her company Rosas and this piece (in 1990 or 1991, I cannot quite remember), I liked it so much the first and second time I saw it, that I ended up seeing it three times.

Visually stunning (100 metronomes on stage that played Gyorgy Ligeti's "Symphonic Poem for 100 metronomes", and sharp, elegant costumes with skirts and high heeled shoes) "Stella" still stands out as one of the strongest stage works I have ever encountered. So I would have loved to see it again. - Anybody out there who knows how?

The New York Times called it "...a multilevel essay on how context changes meaning, especially with respect to how women are regarded by others and themselves".

This video shows part of a well directed film (by Thierry De May, 1997) which is based an earlier piece by De Keersmaeker for Rosas: "Rosas danst Rosas" (1983).

Enjoy!

Felix Gonzalez-Torres

2011-01-04T22:10:00.004+01:00

New year. Clean slate.
I will fill this first one with Felix Gonzalez-Torres, and focus on the possibilities he has given me by handing out candy and posters.

Felix Gonzalez-Torres, "Untitled" (Placebo), 1991. Photo from: Chicago Art Collection.

I have come across his candy in many different exhibitions (among them: Guggenheim, New York, 1995; Astrup Fearnley Museum, Oslo, 2002; Venice Biennale, 2007).

The first time I stood next to one of his shining carpets that look like minimalist sculpture, but are made from sweets wrapped in cellophane, I had to figure out whether or not it was ok to take one. And the moment of insecurity that I experienced then, is a very important aspect to all his different candy pieces.

Well, the answer is: - Yes!

Photo: Ramiro Quesada.

But then another question emerges: - How many will it be ok to take?

Getting something for free like that, in a situation which tends to be about not touching very costly artwork, inspires thoughts about the artwork as a commodity, and about modesty versus "unlimited" sensuous pleasure.

In Felix Gonzalez-Torres's work, mouthfuls of hard, sweet candy, when put together in great numbers, neatly shaped on a gallery floor, become pieces of installation art that not only challenge our desire to own and acquire. They also carry a distinct political message which I will get back to at the bottom of the post.

Felix Gonzalez-Torres, "Untitled" (Golden), 1995.
Photo from: Makurrah's Blog

This golden curtain of beads on strings forms a beautiful, gleaming surface. Its shape is very simple, - like the candy carpet above. And - like the candy piece - it requires viewer participation: It needs your body to brush through the beaded strings. You may be curious about what you can find behind the curtain, but it is most important that you savour the moment when you feel the weight of the beads against your hair and your skin...

Felix Gonzalez-Torres, "Untitled" (Golden), 1995 (detail).
Photo from: Makurrah's Blog

Felix Gonzalez-Torres, "Untitled" (Passport), 1991. Photo from: Leaving Traces.

As far as I remember, the 1995 retrospective at Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York was the first time I encountered Gonzalez-Torres's work. And I remember very well the inspiration I felt as I sat down somewhere on Frank Lloyd Wright's spiralling floors to fold the blank sheet of thick paper I had picked up from one of the stacks that were displayed. I could take a part of Gonzalez-Torres's sculpture and add something to it. Not really making it my own, but helping it fulfil itself...

Photo from Makurrah's Blog.

Here somebody is rolling up a sheet from a stack of printed paper.

Photo from adrienneskye's photostream: "Felix Gonzalez Torres in Paola's Room".

And here is where another sheet from the same stack ended up.

Felix Gonzalez-Torres, "Untitled", 1991. Photo from: DCUBANOS.

This photographic billboard serves well as an example of Gonzalez-Torres's attention to context. The very intimate subject matter of the huge photo is accentuated by its harsh urban surroundings and by the contrast it forms to the commercial images we are used seeing on billboards. Walking down the concrete pavement, glancing up at the board, one may be reminded of one's own feelings and thoughts about love and intimacy, and the private will then stand out as soft and fragile against the public streetscape.

But knowing that Felix Gonzalez-Torrez lost his partner to AIDS prior to the making of this work, and that he died from AIDS himself in 1996, our reading of this billboard takes another direction, towards notions of loss and a focus on prejudice against gay love.

The same perspectives can be applied to his candy work. With these biographical facts in mind, the title "Untitled" (Placebo) gets a more literal meaning, perhaps referring directly to the substitution of lost love by sweet candy.

(More about the "Placebo" series at the International Sculpture Center and the Williams College Museum of Art)

Fra Angelico, "Annunciation"

2010-12-21T15:56:00.004+01:00

Fra Angelico, "Annunciation" 1438-1445. Museo di San Marco, Firenze.

This Renaissance fresco painted by Fra Angelico shows a moment which is quite crucial to the fast approaching Christmas holiday: The moment when Archangel Gabriel gave Mary a message that must have seemed quite overwhelming to her.

She is visited by an angel who either is about to tell her - or just has told her - some pretty devastating news. But she looks so calm. And her simple surroundings - the barren walls and the stool she sits on - accentuate her modest, but intent gaze. Mary and her visitor look at each other, both slightly bowing their heads, and they hold their hands in identical positions.

Even though they are situated below different arches, on each side of a column, their calm attentiveness towards each other makes them seem close. And the depth and space that is created by lines of perspective further enhance their intimacy.

Fra Angelico has created a balanced composition, where only the cell-like window far off in the back may distract us from the quiet action in the foreground. The architecture that surrounds the protagonists of this story is very similar to the architecture at the convent where Fra Angelico has painted the fresco, the San Marco Convent in Firenze. His "Annunciation" is the first painting you see as you ascend the stairs to the first floor, where the monks' cells are (many of them have beautiful frescos by Fra Angelico, as well):

Photo: roma-antica.

Fra Angelico has painted several Annunciations (most of them on panel), and in all that I have seen, Gabriel wears a similar dress made from beautiful gold adorned material.

Fra Angelico, "Annunciation", 1433, detail.

In this version Gabriel points up towards God and over towards Mary.

Fra Angelico, "Annunciation", 1433, detail. Museo Diocesano, Cortona.

And as you can see here, this earlier version does not emit the same quiet contemplative mood as the San Marco fresco does:

Fra Angelico, "Annunciation" 1438-1445. Museo di San Marco, Firenze.

Fra Angelico's depiction of this momentous moment will be my Merry Christmas post to you, and my last post this year.

***

I have had some great moments myself this year (though not quite as defining as the one Mary experienced a couple of thousand years ago...). Several of them have been about meeting people I have not seen in a long time. Thank you so much for showing up in my life again! (You know who you are:-)

Also, while talking about calmly accepting what the moment brings (like Mary does), I want to thank my beautiful yoga teacher, Kari, for making me more able to cut through the grime and experience quiet moments of physical and spiritual enlightenment.

I am so happy I started writing MOMENT/C this fall. It gives me great joy. Thank you so much for visiting, and welcome back early next year!

Art and architecture

2010-12-16T13:21:00.006+01:00

The Main Post Office in Bergen,1961. Monumental painting: Rolf W. Syrdahl's «Postens formidlere».
Photo: bt.no: Birkhaug and Omdal

This beautiful interior is from around 1960 (the building was finished in 1956), and does no longer exist. What was originally the Main Post Office in Bergen, Norway, has now been turned into a mall, and it is totally changed.

I had one of my earliest moments of aesthetic satisfaction while waiting on line in this grand room when I was quite young. - Can you se how beautifully all the details in the room merge together? The very light frames around the windows that face a flight of stairs towards the street outside. The globe light pendants out there in the hallway. The slim furniture design with matching tables and benches. The typography of the signs.

- And do you get a sense of the overall light and spacious feeling the room gives? This is primarily achieved by a large skylight, which also benefits the huge painting above the ceiling.

That monumental work consists of several panels. It is 20 meters wide and 3 meters tall, and it was painted by Rolf Syrdahl to fit this particular space. The subject matter of this frieze-like painting is the important work that is done by those who distribute and deliver mail, and it fits very well into the long tradition of monumental painting that contributed to the building of a national consciousness and social democratic values in a relatively young nation.

This whole interior, which is elevated from the street outside, serves almost as a shrine to the postal service as an institution of great importance in society. But that is not really my main point today. What I would rather like to point out, is how perfectly Rolf Syrdahl's artwork was integrated with the architecture in the old post office.

Photo: bt.no: Ørjan Deisz

When the old post office was turned into a mall, Rolf Syrdahl's painting was taken down and stored in a basement for many years. But yesterday it was unveiled at its new location, at Haukeland University Hospital in Bergen.

It has been restored and cleaned to get back its beautiful colors. And although its new location is far less ideal than the original one, the painting can again be viewed in a building that is open to the public.

Photo: Wyatting

There's a certain Slant of light

2010-12-13T22:08:00.001+01:00

There's a certain Slant of light,
Winter Afternoons --
That oppresses, like the Heft
Of Cathedral Tunes --

Heavenly Hurt, it gives us --
We can find no scar,
But internal difference,
Where the Meanings, are --

None may teach it -- Any --
'Tis the Seal Despair --
An imperial affliction
Sent us of the Air --

When it comes, the Landscape listens --
Shadows -- hold their breath --
When it goes, 'tis like the Distance
On the look of Death --

(Emily Dickinson, c. 1861)

It's December 13 today, Santa Lucia's Day, and we have celebrated the Sicilian woman Lucia, who brought supplies to Christians hiding in the catacombs during Diocletian's reign in the third century. She carried a wreath of candles on her head, and has thus become a symbol of light.

When I looked into Uta Barth's photographs the other day, I saw that Lyra Kilson mentioned "A certain Slant of light" in her review of Bart's recent work. And being quite obsessed with light these days (it gets dark at four in the afternoon where I live) I thought this particular poem by Emily Dickinson would fit well on this dark winter day (which is Santa Lucia's).

But while Santa Lucia used light in a practical way, to be able to maneuver through the catacombs, Emily Dickinson's light holds a spiritual meaning. However, the literal image of light that enters her room on a winter afternoon forms a very important grounding to a poem which says a lot (that is quite difficult to grasp) about spiritual enlightenment.

I found a suite101 reading that helped me understand this poem a little better. Here is what it says about the third stanza:

The speaker declares that no one can teach another how to become aware of the mystical attributes of the yearning for meaning. While “Despair” leads one in that direction, and the desire is universal, it comes to each one as simply as breathing. One’s spiritual development has to be right before one can entertain such divine cravings.

Uta Barth

2010-12-08T21:56:00.001+01:00

Uta Barth, "Ground #30", 1994. Sies + Höke Galerie.

This blurry photograph from the "Ground" series by Uta Barth gives us just enough information to see the corner of a room. It is photography on the brink of complete abstraction. And it shows very clearly that photographs are created by light. The light that falls from the window high up to the left, and the shadows that are formed as the light's negation, build space.

I see painterly qualities in this photograph that remind me of Harald Fenn's paintings. But the most obvious reference is "The Milkmaid" by Vermeer.

Uta Barth, "Ground #42", 1994. Tanya Bonakdar Gallery.

It is as if these "Ground" series photographs could be backgrounds for portraits where the sitter would be in sharp focus. And the feeling of vacancy or void that is left by the missing subject is particularly apparent in this "Ground #42". The small reproductions towards the upper left look like they just happened to be included as a background for a sitter that simply is not there. And compositionally they are balanced by whatever it is that has snuck into the image from the right.

If you look more closely at the top left "painting", you can see that it may very well be a reproduction of the Vermeer I mentioned above...

And if you would like to depart from the more or less literal references these photographs induce, you could try to see them as representations of fleeting thoughts or vague memories...

Uta Barth, invitation card from exhibition at Sies + Höke Galerie, 2008. (Sundial series)

Then there is this image from the "Sundial" series. It is sharply focused, but it has the same vacant center as the photo above. My attention is drawn towards the yellow coach because it almost looks like it is slipping out of the picture, but for some reason it is the shadow that marks the transition between wall and ceiling I end up looking at. Maybe because this is yet another photo that is mostly about light, - about how the light changes through the day (in Barth's own home).

As Lyra Kilston points out in ArtReview:

Barth has long followed the Zen notion of what she calls a ‘choice of no choice’: she refrains from intentionally seeking out photographic subjects and instead turns her camera towards what is already around her – the sundial of her home. Through this disciplined practice, her work highlights the act of seeing as an autonomous undertaking. She does not seek out things in order to make a photograph, she makes photographs of what she happens to see.

Uta Barth, "... to walk without destination and to see only to see (Untitled 10.8)", 2010.
Tanya Bonakdar Gallery.

The Quote above is from a review of Uta Barth's exhibition at 1301PE in Los Angeles in May/June this year. And the title of that show was "Seeing is forgetting the name of the thing one sees". A similar approach to the act of seeing is evident in the title of the diptych above: "...to walk without destination and to see only to see".

Having said that, I will encourage you to look again at all these photos, while trying to forget what you have just read... - Try to see them only to see...

Debate in Bergens Tidende

2010-12-07T11:07:00.003+01:00

Michael Johansson, "27m3", 3x3x3m, site specific installation, 2010.
Entrée at BGO1, Bergen Art Museum. Photo: michaeljohansson.com

Observant readers have already seen Michael Johansson's cubical sculpture in this post about the room Entré curated for the BGO1 exhibit at Bergen Art Museum.

I am showing it again now because I have been so busy debating the art public and criticism in the regional paper Bergens Tidende, that I have not had time to write any post since Thursday. - And that debate revolves partially around this sculpture.

I have posted my text, Øystein Hauge's reply, and my reply to Øystein Hauge here. It is all in Norwegian, of course, so if you would like to comment on the debate, please feel free to do that in Norwegian.

David Wojnarowicz censored by Smithsonian

2010-12-02T22:21:00.002+01:00

David Wojnarowicz, Self portrait. (From Wikipedia)

Sadly coinciding with the World AIDS Day, which was yesterday, the video "A Fire in My Belly" by David Wojnarowicz was removed from the "Hide/Seek" exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington DC. Wojnarowicz made the video in 1987 to honour Peter Hujar who died from AIDS that year.

Tyler Green at Modern Art Notes has followed the story closely.

Blake Gopnik has written a thorough condemnation of the censorship in the Washington Post.

And for more links and the video itself, check out Princess Sparkle Pony's Photo Blog.

Chris Ofili, "Afrodizzia"

2010-12-01T17:17:00.001+01:00

Chris Ofili, "Afrodizzia", second version, 1996. Photo from Tate Britain

Using "Afrodizzia" (second version) by Chris Ofili merely as illustration of what I want to say below, is really quite unfair. Especially since this work lends itself very poorly to photographic reproduction.

It is a canvas filled with layers of lots of different stuff, like paint, cut out photos and elephant dung. And as you can see above, the frame itself also rests on balls of elephant dung. By using that rather untraditional material, Ofili quite blatantly plays with stereotypical notions of African culture. - Like he does when he spreads out images of faces with afro hairdos across a very colorful surface.

The reason why I'm showing this work today is that I want to say something about art and Advent. - Some connection, uh? Well, it's December 1 today, and Sunday was the first of the four last Sundays before Christmas, when we light purple candles. - Four of them in a wreath, and one more to be lit every Sunday.

This year we invited our friends who are originally from Ethiopia to come light the first candle and have dinner with us. So it's not really Advent I want to say something about, but the experience of getting to know Sara and Omar, who are refugees from Ethiopia, and their four children. They are Muslim, and sharing our Christian traditions with them, gave me a fresh perspective on those actions that I perform every year without really thinking about them.

Sara and Omar are great people that I would enjoy hanging out with in any circumstance. But sharing Advent with them and getting to take part in some of their ways and traditions, gives me such a valuable perspective on my own life choices (small and large). And it confronts me with plenty of stereotypical and generalized notions that I have about Africa. - For instance, I realize that Africa is so much more diverse than I tend to assume since I have never been anywhere on that huge continent.

So thinking about all this in relation to Advent, I searched my memory for suitable African art to go with it. But tellingly enough, the British artist Chris Ofili was as close as I got. I think it must have been his "Afrodizzia" (second version) I saw in the SENSATION show at Hamburger Bahnhof in 1998.

I do not know anything about African art, but Ofili's work does more or less the same as getting to know people from Africa: It highlights my prejudice.

Michael Krebber, "Miami City Ballet IV"

2010-11-29T13:41:00.003+01:00

Michael Krebber, "Miami City Ballet IV", 2010.
Photo from Galerie Daniel Buchholz, Berlin, 2010

I stopped by Bergen Kunsthall the other day to see the exhibit of four artists that is currently showing there. Among all the works that are included in that show, the one above, by Michael Krebber, gave me the most momentous moment of seeing "something".

But what was it that I saw?

For starters: Three primed canvases in a vertical pile that is halfway covered by a polka dot "hood", with a smear of black paint up towards the right.

This seemed quite meaningless to me. But knowing how rear it is, - that experience of not immediately connecting a visual uttering with some kind of perceived message, I was thrilled. And even more so when I found out that the work is titled "Miami City Ballet IV".

The connection between the covered up canvases and the title "Miami City Ballet IV" made no sense to me. I could find no literal connection, apart from thinking of other artists that have painted ballet, - Degas, for instance. But bringing Degas's impressions of dancers into my moment at Bergen Kunsthall, just seemed like an irrelevant distraction.

- Or maybe the three canvases could be perceived as stopped in moment, lined up and covered by a mutual piece of costume? No, the title "Miami City Ballet IV" left me with an even stronger notion that this work does not give any direct meaning in and of itself. (But the exciting experience of actually trying to find one, and feeling very close to finding it, was what made that moment at Bergen Kunsthall worthy of bringing on.)

What I found when I looked for meaning outside of the artwork itself, you can read below the next pictures. But that is more or less random information which ends up confirming a notion that this work is not a painting in any traditional singular sense, but a "painting" that is only concerned with the premises of "painting" as a general notion, and with the context that makes works like "Miami City Ballet IV" possible.

(If you are uncertain about the term "context", please look at this former post).

Michael Krebber, "Miami City Ballet I", 2010.
Photo from Galerie Daniel Buchholz, Berlin, 2010

Michael Krebber, "Miami City Ballet II", 2010.
Photo from Galerie Daniel Buchholz, Berlin, 2010

Michael Krebber, "Miami City Ballet III", 2010.
Photo from Galerie Daniel Buchholz, Berlin, 2010

Since then, I have found the paintings "Miami City Ballet" numbers I-III. They were included in a show Michael Krebber had at Galerie Daniel Buchholz in Berlin this summer.

Michael Krebber, "Miami City Ballet", Installation view, Galerie Daniel Buchholz, 2010

And this was how the paintings were installed: Three of them to the left, and then the covered up ones to the right. With a big box clad in fabric between.

Michael Krebber, "Miami City Ballet", 2010,
invitation card photo, Galerie Daniel Buchholz, Berlin, 2010

I also found out where the artist got the title from: The entire show at Daniel Buchholz was titled "Miami City Ballet", and here is an excerpt from the invitation card written by Krebber:

"'Miami City Ballet" shall be the first stop in, or the downbeat of a series of ”new” exhibitions
following a lengthy period of inactivity. I took the photograph on the invitation card during a
Douglas Crimp lecture. It shows the photograph being projected—of Edward Villella—the ballet
dancer and later founder of the "MCB"—in the midst himself of holding a lecture. He shows his
arm; looks at it and—according to Crimp-comments on it. That he is “beholding” his arm is un-
knowable from my blurry photograph. More or less the same applies here, too.

[...] At this point we put in the picture of Paul Swan, the actor and dancer who once held the title: "Most Beautiful Man in the World"; Swan who appears and dances beside a curtain behind which he disappears for a costume change or some other preparation but doesn’t reappear except perhaps when no one can believe it any more.[...]

- So was this what Michael Krebber intended all along: Covering up the paintings ("painting") until no one can believe in them (believe in "it") any more?

***

On December 2, David Joselit will speak about "Painting Stripped Bare" at Bergen Kunsthall.

Nicholas Nixon, "The Brown Sisters"

2010-11-24T22:19:00.120+01:00

Nicholas Nixon. The Brown Sisters, New Canaan, Connecticut. 1975

Nicholas Nixon. The Brown Sisters. 1988

Nicholas Nixon. The Brown Sisters. 1997

Nicholas Nixon. The Brown Sisters. 2007

These were the photos I was looking for yesterday, when I got distracted by Harry Callahan's "Chicago". I had never before seen that beautiful image of trees on the shore of Lake Michigan. And I had never seen "The Brown Sisters" either, - not until one of my former high school students showed them in class last year. - Thank you, Sofie!

I let my students browse the MoMA Photography Collection on the internet, and their task was to choose one or more pictures to present in class. Sofie gave a very inspired - and inspiring - talk about "The Brown Sisters", - about affection, connection, and differences. And about growing older.

I think these photographs fit well on a day when most people in the USA are getting ready to give thanks. They may inspire thankfullness about having a family, and perhaps feeling close and connected.

The time span that is so evident on these women's faces and bodies, forms a very important part of Nicholas Nixon's project (he has photographed the sisters every year from 1975 to 2008). Their age is accentuated, but the last two photos show that they are not ashamed of growing older. - Why should they be?

- And why do I even bring up this issue?
Well, maybe because I turned 40 a year and a half ago, and I do not like being targeted by all those who want to help me look younger...

I will rather listen to the actress Liv Ullmann who refuses to put on makeup that would hide her great life from showing on her face; I will look again at the portrait of Georgia O'Keeffe that tends to make me a little better able to love my own wrinkles; and I will give thanks to Nicholas Nixon for sharing the beauty of growing older.

Harry Callahan

2010-11-23T18:44:00.000+01:00

Harry Callahan, "Chicago", c. 1950. Museum of Modern Art.

Looking for another photographer's work in the MoMA database, I just stumbled upon this image.
And I instantly fell in love.

It has got such intensity and near symmetrical beauty that I felt physically pulled towards it.

There is the white snow, - horizontal, and the black trunks, - vertical. Such powerful contrasts that would have been too harsh if it weren't for the calm grey water and sky that flow in between. The water and the sky form an even expanse, with a barely discernable horizon. But there, over to the right, is a glimpse of light.

Six tree trunks are rooted in the white snow, rhythmically organized in pairs. The pair to the left and the pair to the right seem well established, whereas those two trunks in the middle are a little more hesitant. The branches, though, are not shy. They blend together and form a web that almost entirely covers the sky.

Fred Sandback (+ more on Juan Muñoz)

2010-11-22T13:19:00.000+01:00

Fred Sandback at Dia Chelsea, 1996. Photo: Dia Art Foundation.

On Friday, I wrote about one of the two sculpture shows I saw together with my former art history professor, Dag Sveen, at Dia Chelsea in 1996. Among all the different shows we saw that day, neither of us remember more than these two: Fred Sandback and Juan Muñoz (see Friday's post). - That may say something about the quality of their work, don't you think?

It's not easy to find photos of works that were shown 14 years ago. But the one above is from that very Sandback show at Dia.

As far as I remember, the yarn he had used in those sculptures was red, and it was put up in vertical rectangles without any perceptible attachment to the ceiling.

It was fascinating to walk around those shapes that were so modest, and still feel so strongly affected by their presence. I felt required to respect the shape they outlined. Crossing the horizontal line that was attached to the floor seemed impossible...

Fred Sandback at David Swirner, 2009.

It is a general defining feature in sculptures that they have a certain volume, but in Sandback's sculptures volume is perceived almost only indirectly, as the shape they outline.

Fred Sandback at David Swirner, 2009.

In this photo, you can see how the string seems to have grown quietly out from the ceiling. And even though they are made from string, the sculptures look surprisingly solid, almost like wall panels dividing the gallery space.

***

Juan Muñoz, "Five Seated Figures", 1996. Photo from: The City Review.

Right after I had written about Muñoz' "A Place Called Abroad" on Friday, I went to an opening where I ran into Dag. So we talked some more about that show, and he reminded me of the slightly-less-than-human scale Muñoz has given his figures. This is crucial to their double appearance, - as both familiar and foreign. If you merely give them a fleeting glance, they seem quite vivid and familiar. But if you look more closely, you notice their slightly washed out features and puppet-like limbs.

(The photo above is taken in Sotheby's New York exhibition space. This group of sculptures with mirror was sold at Sotheby's on November 11, 2009 for $1,202,500.)

Juan Muñoz, "A Place Called Abroad"

2010-11-19T17:15:00.001+01:00

Juan Muñoz, "A Place Called Abroad", 1996, Dia Art Foundation.

Reminiscing with my former art history professor, Dag Sveen, about the day we spent together roaming New York City art galleries back in 1996, I found out that among all the shows we saw that day, neither of us remember more than two, and those are the same two! - Both were at Dia in Chelsea, and both were sculpture/installations.

The scrawny picture above is the only one I have managed to find from Spanish artist Juan Muñoz' "A Place Called Abroad". He had changed the gallery space into an eerie streetscape and naked interiors inhabited by figures absorbed in something we as viewers were not invited into. It gave us an uneasy, but very interesting feeling of being foreigners in "A Place Called Abroad".

What I have found, though, is this beautiful video, made as homage to the artist who died in 2001, by Ray Anderson:

A Place Called Abroad (for Juan Muñoz) from Ray Anderson on Vimeo.

The music is by Alberto Inglesias, and it is apparently the same music as Juan Muñoz listened to while he installed the work. (It certainly adds to the melancholy mood...)

***
Fred Sandback's subtle string sculptures were the other works both Dag and I remember from that gallery crawl. I'll get back to that someday soon.

MOMENTs in film

2010-11-17T13:23:00.002+01:00

"The Unbearable Lightness of Being", 1988.
Picture from nighthawknews

I hope you are up for a post that stretches the definition of art and gives an almost embarrassingly personal account of certain precious moments I experienced around twenty years ago, when I saw something that made me understand more about art (but also about love and communication...)

The first time I watched "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" (in 1988) I realized that film is not only entertainment, but also art. I was not particularly moved by the love story it tells, but (... I am aware of how pompous this sounds....) Sven Nykvist's fantastic cinematography made me see the world in a new light!

"The Unbearable Lightness of Being", 1988, Picture from stickyfingers

I was probably too young and immature to be very fascinated by Sabina (Lena Olin's character). I wanted to be like Tereza (Juliette Binoche), - able to see beauty in harsh realities.

IMDb

A little later that year I watched "The Good Mother", a mediocre film that I can hardly remember. But one scene made a lasting impression. When I saw the mother (Diane Keaton), who is in danger of losing custody of her little girl, talk to her by the kitchen counter one morning, I understood that it is possible to communicate with children in ways that crucially enhance their feeling of self worth.

It took eleven years from I watched that film until I became a mother myself, but that "Good Mother" character still represents an ideal that I strive for.

"The Double Life of Veronique", 1991. Picture from David Bordwell's website on cinema

"The Double Life of Veronique" gave me a similar kind of inspiration as I had got from "The Unbearable Lightness of Being": The cinematography, the music, and the way the main character (Irène Jacob) experiences the world around her.

"Shadowlands", 1993. Picture from henryzecher.com

Love is difficult (that must be the obvious reason why it is the theme of so many stories). But the film "Shadowlands" made me understand what my challenge is, and I am still working on it...

***
I would be very happy to hear if you have had similar experiences with MOMENTs in film :-)

Robert Rauschenberg at Black Mountain College

2010-11-15T13:46:00.000+01:00

Black Mountain College: experiment in art, ed. Vincent Katz, 2002,
Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia

When I read that Gagosian Gallery now represents the estate of Robert Rauschenberg and is showing a museum quality retrospective exhibition of his work at their 21st Street Chelsea space, I came to think of the documentary film about Black Mountain College I did research for as an intern at David Royle Productions in New York in the early 1990s. I was only at the production company for a semester, and I never got to see the film finished, but I was fascinated by what I learned:

- Black Mountain College was such a magic place! Beautiful, as you can see from the picture above, and very important as a hub for artistic experimentation and collaboration in the early careers of great artists like John Cage, Merce Cunningham, Robert Rauschenberg and many others (...Cy Twombly, Kenneth Noland, Susan Weil, Denise Levertov...)

Robert Rauschenberg, "White Painting", 1951, Gagosian Gallery.

Robert Rauschenberg was adamant about distancing himself from the Abstract Expressionists. He wanted to minimize evidence of the artist's hand, and painted a series of all-white and a series of nearly black paintings. According to Vincent Katz in Black Mountain College: experiment in art, John Cage has said that Rauschenberg's white paintings gave him the push to compose 4'33'', his very important silent piece.

Many collaborative and experimental happenings were staged at Black Mountain College, and "Theater Piece No. 1" which John Cage "orchestrated" in 1952 is considered the first one. There was film, there were slides, Cage talked about music and Zen Buddhism from a stepladder, Cunningham and other dancers moved through and around the audience, and Rauschenberg's white paintings were suspended above.

Viola Farber in "Summerspace", 1958 by M. Cunningham,
Design: Robert Rauschenberg, Photo from: MONDOBLOGO

In 1958 he designed the set and costumes for Cunningham's "Summerspace", first performed in New London, CT, with music by Morton Feldman.

Robert Rauschenberg, "Bed", 1955
Museum of Modern Art, Photo: artnet.

And while he was still at Black Mountain College (the school closed in 1956), he acquired the quilt that he used in one of his first Combines (what he called the kind of works he is most famous for having made, in which he used found objects).

Tornsey and Elsley in their book Quilt Culture: Tracing the Pattern, p. 149:
The Log Cabin quilt used in Bed once belonged to artist Dorothea Rockburne. She recalls, "It was kind of special to me because I had it at the time my daughter Christine was born, and she used to spend a lot of time on it. I didn't actually give Bob the quilt, it just sort of appeared one day. We were living at Black Mountain College then, and when you sent the wash out things had a way of appearing and disappearing. I remember when I first saw the painting he had made of it I thought 'Oh! That's the quilt that I had!' It was a wonderful experience seeing it."

Stian Ådlandsvik

2010-11-11T20:33:00.001+01:00

"One Day All Sheds Will Be Useful", 2006

Installation view: "Historical Detour (Consequences of a Slip of the Tongue Awarding
Denmark the North Sea)", 2006, Galleri Erik Steen.

The photo of the shed in the field hangs on the wall right outside my office. And the pallet stands up against the wall below it. Even though, many people who come by have a hard time noticing the connection between them. - Can you see it?

There is such a romantic feel to that photo: The tough, but at the same time sheltering mountainside, and the dark clouds in contrast to the soft sunlight that shines on the patches of snow.

But what about the the boards that are missing from the shed's wall? - Well yes, exactly, the pallet has been made from them. And it has become a beautiful pallet, carrying years of rain, snow and sunshine on its surface.

As romantic as all this may seem, the work's title introduces a political perspective: "Historical Detour (Consequences of a Slip of the Tongue Awarding Denmark the North Sea)". ... What if?

- If his native country were not entitled to sell oil from the North Sea, would the artist Stian Ådlandsvik then be making pallets from all the sheds that are no longer in use ("One Day All Sheds Will Be Useful")? - Or maybe then all the sheds would still be in use, like they were about fifty years ago...

Documentation: S. Ådlandsvik and Lutz-Rainer Müller,
"You only tell me you love me when you're drunk",
Hordaland Art Centre, 2010

Installation view: S. Ådlandsvik and Lutz-Rainer Müller,
"You only tell me you love me when you're drunk",
Hordaland Art Centre, 2010

Documentation (from Hordaland Art Centre)

The other pictures document a work Stian Ådlandsvik recently executed together with Lutz-Rainer Müller in Bergen, Norway, and on the island Askøy, right outside of Bergen. It was titled You only tell me you love me when you're drunk and consisted of three parts: A model of a house which was to be demolished (bottom pictures); the house itself, altered according to the state the model was in after having travelled around the world; and sculptures made from the materials that were torn down.

More information about this project can be found at Hordaland Art Centre.

Entrée at BGO1

2010-11-09T19:24:00.000+01:00

Michael Johansson, "27m3", 3x3x3m, site specific installation, 2010. Entrée at BGO1, Bergen Art Museum.
Photo: Vilde Andrea Brun.

These days, at Bergen Art Museum, there is a cube put together from stuff that has been collected at different artists' studios. It is the work of Michael Johansson, who has done similar sculptures in many other venues.

Michael Johansson, "27m3", 3x3x3m, site specific installation, 2010. Entrée at BGO1, Bergen Art Museum.
Photo: michaeljohansson.com

The dimensions of this cube fit very well into the room in which it is exhibited, - in such a way that it activates the space around itself, and seems to be of perfect size. Since the walls and the space around the sculpture are (almost) empty, it is as if lots of stuff that has been lying around, somehow magically imploded into a perfect cube...

And by transforming into art transportation boxes, monitors, file drawers, and light bulb packs etc., this sculpture pays homage to the tedious everyday studio effort that has been carried out to produce all the other works that are exhibited in the same collective show, - while also directing our attention behind the scenes of the art museum.

When I first saw this sculpture, I enjoyed its formal aspects very much: The composition of colors, shapes, and different sized objects. Does anybody else come to think of a Mondrian painting?

Gabriel Johann Kvendseth, "First we take Manhatta, Bow & Arrows", 2010. Entrée at BGO1, Bergen Art Museum.
Photo: Vilde Andrea Brun.

Then, quietly, in the corner of the room, these three arrows have been shot into the wall. Well, one is broken, and the back part of it lies on the floor. This subtle and delicate work by Gabriel Johann Kvendseth goes well together with the big and loud colored cubical sculpture. Sometimes a quiet whisper becomes more audible than high-pitched insistence...

(This one room in the exhibition BGO1 at Bergen Art Museum has been curated by Entrée)

The Red Wheelbarrow

2010-11-08T18:49:00.001+01:00

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

(William Carlos Williams, 1923)

To me, this poem has always been about seeing. - Ever since I first read it in early fall, 1989. I remember the moment exactly; because "The Red Wheelbarrow" was presented in the very first lecture I attended at the University of Bergen, during the first couple of weeks that fall semester, before I went back to New York.

Professor Orm Øverland used it as an introduction to English literature and asked what the meaning of it was. I answered that it shows us the importance of noticing beauty around us, even in unspectacular, everyday objects.

I still appreciate this poem very much. I think it says something important about what art is, and can be. Visual art points out beautiful, interesting, shocking, funny...etc... aspects of life, that we may not notice on our own. And artworks often draw heavily on their context; a big part of a work's meaning may be generated by the surroundings in which it is presented. - Just like the image of the wheelbarrow in Williams's poem is something we can see more clearly when we imagine its red color next to the white chickens, an image that we most likely would not have been able to appreciate if he had not pointed our attention to it.

What do you think this poem is about?
Is there another poem that tells you something similar (or different!) about art?
Then please send it to me by e-mail, so that I can include it in my poetry page (momentc@hotmail.no).

Olafur Eliasson (+ maternity care in Ethiopia)

2010-11-07T20:55:00.003+01:00

"Your strange certainty still kept", 1996, Tanya Bonakdar Gallery

A rule I have set for myself in writing this blog, is always to present works that I have experienced "live" and that have made a lasting impression on me.

That is true of "Your strange certainty still kept". When I saw this at Tanya Bonakdar gallery in 1996, it was the first time I came across Olafur Eliasson's work, and it made me want to see more. The problem is, now, so many years later, I can only remember that I very much liked this work, but not why...

"The weather project", 2003, Turbine Hall, Tate Modern, London, UK.

And having announced that rule, I go ahead and break it right away...
I never got to experience "The weather project". But I would have liked very much to lie down on the floor in the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern, bathing in the light from the big "sun", while looking at my reflection in the mirror that covered the ceiling high up above me in the "sky"...

"Many small fireflies",
ongoing, Maternity Worldwide.

What I do get to see everyday, though, is the "Many small fireflies" screensaver that I got when I donated 30 euros to Maternity Worldwide's work in Ethiopia, where they give women life saving maternity care.

On my black computer screen, a myriad of fireflies light up, each representing a donation that has been made to Maternity Worldwide. Thus, for every person who donates, a new firefly is ignited, and this way your contribution becomes part of the artwork itself.

(Here you can see what it looks like.)

Caravaggio

2010-11-05T10:58:00.000+01:00

"The Calling of St. Matthew", 1599-1600, San Luigi dei Francesi, Rome. (Reproduction cropped top and bottom.)

This is one of Caravaggio's most famous paintings, "The Calling of Saint Matthew". I have seen it in reproduction so many times and was very exited to get to look at it "live" when I was in Rome recently.

I enjoyed its technical mastery and composition, - particularly the light that comes in from the top right corner, falls on Christ's hand, and illuminates the dice-playing men's faces and the money in front of them on the table.

And it was interesting to see, within the walls of a church, the controversial image of a gambling man being chosen by Christ, but I experienced an even greater contrast between the next two paintings and their surroundings. They are placed on either side of a pastel colored "Assumption of the Virgin" by Carracci, in Santa Maria del Popolo.

"The Crucifixion of Saint Peter", 1600-1601, Santa Maria del Popolo, Rome.

"The Conversion of Saint Paul", 1601, Santa Maria del Popolo, Rome.

Do you see how literally down to earth Caravaggio has chosen to tell these two stories? - The dirty feet and dug up gravel on the ground below the cross in the first picture. - And the tangle of horse legs and human legs in "The Conversion of Saint Paul".

In both paintings the light serves not only to accentuate the main character, but also to create a very intimate visual room for us to enter. And you can see how the light creates a similarly intimate setting in the last painting, where Christ helps his mother crush the head of a snake that symbolises original sin.

"Madonna of the Palafrenieri", 1605-1606, Galleria Borghese, Rome.

Rivane Neuenschwander

2010-11-03T14:28:00.000+01:00

Rivane Neuenschwander, "I Wish Your Wish", photo from Armando Rampas.

Still waiting for Marc Horowitz to call me, I came to think of the Rivane Neuenschwander show I saw at the New Museum in New York this summer.

Well, yes, I did merely look at most of the show (titled "A Day Like Any Other"), but in the piece that you see here ("I Wish Your Wish"), I also participated.

All the walls in the lobby gallery space at the New Museum were covered by little holes (10,296 in total), and from each hole hung a silk ribbon with text.

Rivane Neuenschwander,
"I Wish Your Wish", photo from Pittsburg City Paper.

I entered the room carefully, while trying to figure out what it was all about. The text on the ribbons looked like prayers, and in some of the holes the ribbons had been replaced by rolled up paper (see photo blow).

All the colors, the pattern and texture that from a distance looked almost like tapestry... It was beautiful. And being surrounded by so many people's wishes felt sacred.

Rivane Neuenschwander, "I Wish Your Wish", photo from Shotgun Review.

By the entrance to the gallery there were pencils and paper. So I wrote my special wish on a piece of paper, rolled it up, and went to pick out a ribbon on which somebody else's wish was printed. It took me a while to find the right one. I had to consider many possible wishes, but ended up tying a pink ribbon around my wrist, with a wish that was supposed to come true when the ribbon fell off...

***

There was also another work in the show that required audience participation. In "First Love" a forensic sketch artist would listen to your description and make a drawing of your first love:

Rivane Neuenschwander, "First Love", photo from jaunted.

(The exhibition has travelled on, and is now at the Kemper Art Museum in St. Louis.)

Marc Horowitz

2010-11-02T12:58:00.002+01:00

Marc Horowitz, "The Advice of strangers"

I have had so much fun checking out other art blogs today that I have not had time to write any post.

Just see what I found: "The Advice of Strangers"
And read my comment to that Artlog post... I hope he will call me...

Harald Fenn

2010-11-01T18:44:00.000+01:00

Harald Fenn, "Urban Melancholy", Oil on MDF, 1998.

Today I'll give you a small retrospective of the Norwegian artist Harald Fenn's paintings. The exhibition is hung chronologically, and I have chosen paintings that show the change in his work from straight lined abstraction in which the different textures in the lines create a certain depth of field (above), via:

Harald Fenn, "Pastorale Golden Green", 2000.

Straight vertical lines on top of blurred out crossing lines which remind me of squinting my eyes against sunlight reflected on water in the summer.
Then further on to:

Harald Fenn, "Exterior 01", 2005.

Lines that have softened and hang down limply. The title tells us that we are still outdoors. Maybe the light shines through foliage now. We seem to be enclosed in the green somehow, but in the next picture we get a much better overview:

Harald Fenn, "Interventions no 5", 2007

Voila: There is discernable landscape in the background. However, Fenn still keeps a balance between the abstract brush-painted lines in the foreground and figurative spray-paint in the back. So we go on to:

Harald Fenn, "Horizon", 2010.

The lines having disappeared completely. Here we get a clear unfettered view of the ocean and the sky.

This is my favorite painting from Fenn's current show at the Erik Steen Gallery. And it forms a turning point, I think, in his continuous movement toward larger depth. Quite naturally, that is, since one cannot ever gaze further than the horizon...

The Cloisters (+ David Lynch, Jonathan Franzen and celebrity minister sex...)

2010-10-31T12:23:00.003+01:00

The Unicorn in Captivity, around 1500, The Cloisters, New York

The Trie Cloister. Capitals: Late 15th century. Fountain: Different elements from around 1500.

A page from the Limbourg Brother's Belles Heures, about 1410

The Langon Chapel. Original parts of the stonework: 12th century. (Photo: James Muspratt)

The first semester I spent in New York, I was struggling to deal with my new situation as a mediocre (at best!) dance student among so many talented dancers. But I worked hard in class, and when I was not too exhausted from that, I would explore the city by foot. I also watched dance shows and film, moved around by subway, ate my lunches in Union Square, had very little money, and lived with many different roommates in crappy apartments. - Without ever reflecting on how this move from my well organized life at my parents' house, in the outskirts of Europe, actually affected me.

I just happened to notice something very peculiar when I visited The Cloisters one crisp and beautiful autumn day.

It was not a religious experience, and I did not yet have any particular interest in the art I saw there. It must just have been that big transition from busy downtown everyday life to those quiet and beautiful surroundings on that hill way up north on Manhattan, overlooking the Hudson River.

The calm and inspired state I reached that day when I looked at the beautiful unicorn tapestries, walked through the sensuous gardens and experienced the magnificent light and sacred ambience in the different chapels, is something that I ever since then have thought of as "The Cloister Mood".

* * *

This blog is supposed to be about art and sometimes about poetry (and I do not want the posts to be too long for people to bother reading them), but today I feel a strong need to write a little something about sex and literature... (Feel free to stop reading right here, because the sex-part will not be particularly sensational, I'm afraid.)

Thinking about the sacred feeling I got that long time ago at The Cloisters, I would like to tell you about reading one of the Norwegian tabloids when I was in Oslo about a week ago.

I had just finished the memoir "Eat, Pray, Love", in which I found the "Pray" part most interesting (where the protagonist struggles with her meditation). And the night before I had heard David Lynch speak about meditation and creative work. He was stopping in Oslo on a book tour, at the same time as Jonathan Franzen was there to present his last novel, "Freedom". (Two very big names in such a provincial capital at the same time!)

So in that paper (which is a curious mix of gaudy tabloid with a well informed culture section), there was a piece on David Lynch ("mild and kind" - almost like a minister?), and there was one on Jonathan Franzen, who talked about the novel as salvation (not the exact term he used, though) from our busy lives that are so dense with digital information. The novel, he said, makes us sit down for long, quiet periods, and it gives us a precious chance to reflect.

But the front page of that paper - in which these two great artists put forth eternal (almost religious) values (love, beauty, centeredness, reflection) - was covered by a minister from the Church of Norway, the "celebrity minister" Einar Gelius. That day he made top news for having published a book about sex in the bible, in which he apparently hails pornography and elaborates on his private sexual preferences.

I'm all for sex, don't misunderstand. And obviously this rebel minister does not represent the Church of Norway in this case. It is just a pity that the Church of Norway does not manage to get more publicity about what it has to offer on the matters of which David Lynch and Jonathan Franzen spoke in the same paper: Love, beauty, meditation and reflection.

(... And I am aware that putting the sex-word in the heading of this post may be deemed as speculative as putting the "celebrity minister" on the front page of that paper...)

Georgia O'Keeffe

2010-10-30T13:29:00.000+02:00

The woman with the sly and teasing look in her eyes is Georgia O'Keeffe, photographed by Ansel Adams in 1937. He has said the following about this photograph:

“I remember that we watched a group of Navajos riding their horses westward along the wash edge, and we could occasionally hear their singing and the echoes from the opposite cliffs. The cedar and pinyon forests along the plateau rim were gnarled and stunted and fragrant in the sun. The Southwest is O'Keeffe's land; no one else has extracted from it such a style and color, or has revealed the essential forms so beautifully as she has in her paintings.” (Collaborative Arts Resources for Education)

Georgia O'Keeffe, "Ram's Head White Hollyhock and Little Hills", 1935, Brooklyn Museum

Georgia O’Keeffe, "Ranchos Church No. 1", 1929, Norton Museum of Art

Ansel Adams, "Saint Francis Church Ranchos de Taos, New Mexico", c. 1929
Gelatin silver print, 13 5/16 x 17 9/16 inches Collection Center for Creative Photography,
University of Arizona © The Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust

Do you see how she simplifies the New Mexican landscape in her paintings?
And how her version of the Ranchos church is even more stringent than Adams's black and white photograph of the same church?
She shows us the beauty in those very basic architectural shapes.

Georgia O'Keeffe, "Red Poppy", 1927

"Georgia O'Keeffe" Philippe Halsman,
Gelatin silver print, 1967
Halsman Family Collection,
Image Copyright the Estate of Philippe Halsman

Her close-up of a red poppy is my favorite, but I must admit that when I first discovered her art, sometime around 1990, I was most fascinated with her as a strong and independent woman, living on her own in her beautiful Ghost Ranch house. That bottom portrait is particularly stunning, I think. Seeing her wise expression and beautiful face makes me a little better able to love my own wrinkles.

Ansel Adams

2010-10-28T18:09:00.001+02:00

I am probably not the only one who has come to appreciate art through enjoyment of black and white photography. The reason why, I think, is the rendering of light. Black and white photographs show us how important light is to any visual experience, and in doing this, they have something in common with impressionist-inspired paintings like the one I showed in a former post. Somehow, the importance of light becomes more apparent in black and white photos than in color photos. Probably because of the substantial degree of abstraction that is at work when colors are replaced by shades of gray.

The first few years I lived in New York, I used to go to the International Center of Photography quite often. And Ansel Adams was a favorite artist. I had a calendar with his photographs in my kitchen. I even visited Yosemite and the Death Valley on a cross country trip, to get a live experience of the beauty Adams had shown me. Those places are definitely beautiful, but I didn't quite manage to see them the same way in real life.

I have uploaded a version of the top picture which is quite detailed (hopefully it is not too large for your connection...). But standing in front of the original print is obviously totally different. You just have to imagine seeing all the rich details and depth of shade in "Moon and half Dome", Yosemite National Park, 1960. And can you see how well the shades of gray sculpt the dunes in "Sand Dunes, Sunrise, Death Valley National Monument, California, 1948"?

Ernesto Neto

2010-10-27T10:25:00.001+02:00

Tanya Bonakdar Gallery 1997

Imagine walking around in a small gallery space, between streched out stockings filled with spice. - The smells, the colors. - Moving carefully...

Ernesto Neto's work made a strong impression the first time I saw it, in 1997, when Tanya Bonakdar Gallery was still located somewhere in Soho where you had to arrive by elevator. It filled the entire room and was quite seductive...

"Simple and light as a dream...the gravity don’t lie...just loves the time", 2006
Installation view fromTanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York
Foto: Fabian Birgfeld, photoTECTONICS. Courtesy of the artist and Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York

"Simple and light as a dream...[...]" is included in the retrospective currently showing at the Astrup Fearnley Museum in Oslo. According to the Norwegian critic Gerd Elise Mørland, the seductive and physical aspects of Neto's work get lost in this big show. Apparently, there just isn't the same possibility to become totally emmersed in the different sculptural installations when they are presented as a collection of separate highlights, rather than sculptural environments that have been created to fill a particular space.

I still checked it out on a trip to Oslo last week, and hoped to be seduced... again...
I enjoyed Neto's almost childish play with gravity, but there was, unfortunately, only one work in which I became completely surrounded by texture and smell, "Stone Lips, Pepper Tits, Clove Love, Fog Frog" from 2008:

Entering across the "Stone Lips" filled with pebbels, into the body that I thought of as the "Fog Frog", I could smell the "Pepper Tits" and the "Clove Love"...

- Magic, and yes; quite sensual...

Photo: Librado Romero/The New York Times

(From The Armory Show)

"Walking in Venus Blue Cave", 2001.

The works in these last two pictures are not included in the Oslo retrospective.

- Can you imagine wandering into the sculpture in The Armory Show?
- Or taking some time off in the "Venus Blue Cave"...

Robert Mapplethorpe

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Self Portrait, 1975

Lydia Cheng, 1987

Tulip, 1985

Derrick Cross, 1983,
all pictures: THE ROBERT MAPPLETHORPE FOUNDATION

When I was 19, I went to New York City to study dance. - A big step in many ways: Leaving little Bergen, Norway; getting overwhelming challenges as a dance student; and discovering some amazing art museums.

A Robert Mapplethorpe retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art (1988) was the first show I saw.

Look at that playful guy in the top picture.
- Isn't there some of the same playfulness in the next two photos?
Do you see the beautiful lines and proportions? A stringent abstraction is accentuated by the black and white format, particularly in the tulip picture.
- And the way that last photo has been composed: What a beautiful shape...

Skagenmalerne (The painters at Skagen, Denmark)

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Peder S. Krøyer, "Sommeraften på Skagen Sønderstrand" 1893, Skagens Museum.

I had a small reproduction of this painting in my room when I was a school girl still living at my parents' house. - At an age when intimate friendship was so important and stylish clothes were a big part of my dreams about the future.

I thought of it as old fashioned, and did not realize how modern it was considered less than a hundred years earlier, when painters had just started to paint outdoors, rendering clean, clear colors in natural light.

Do you see how the soft evening sunlight makes the dresses and the women's necks shine, so quietly?
The beach continues far into the painting, to where the sky and the sea meet. And the ocean is almost completely still, waiting.

This is now...

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... when I welcome you to my blog.

I have chosen to call it MOMENT/C because I want to give you a chance to take a moment off from whatever you are doing in front of your screen, - to see artwork that can let you experience just this moment ... now.