Antony Gormley: Another Place

I first learned about Antony Gormley while working for the art advisory firm in San Francisco on plans to install one of his cast-iron figures on a client's property. They wished to place the sculpture in the middle of a lake near their home, from which it would appear to be rising out of the water's surface. I don't think it was ever completed after I moved out of California, but during the project, I fell in love with his work.

Gormley has an ability to communicate both solitude and unity through his installations, which often include dozens of life size, cast-iron figures of his own body. Another Place is a great example (pictured above). Installed, and then later removed because of local politics, at Crosby Beach in England in 2005, 100 of these figures were positioned so that they faced out toward the sea. They each stood alone, spaced apart by some distance, yet at the same time they remained as a group and therefore unified in some way. It makes for an interesting tension between the two realities - separateness and solidarity. Standing among them, between these two possibilities, where would we, as the viewers and perhaps participants in the scene, have fallen?

Louise Bourgeois

A strong woman, perhaps the matriarch of the contemporary art world, outspoken (she once told the Washington Post that she "really wants to worry people, to bother people" with her work), courageous, hard-working, visionary, and prolific in her career, she continued to draw, make sculpture and paint all the way up to her death last month at the age of 98. I, like so many others in this country and throughout the world, was drawn to her work on so many levels. Her uninhibited approach to both materials and subject matters - which ranged from emotions such as anger, betrayal, even murder, and issues of sexuality, feminism and motherhood - was perhaps unmatched by any other female artist. For me personally, the image of the spider, which she wrought in both small and large scale formats, has made the most impact.

What is pictured above, the mothering, protective, and guardian spider that stands over a caged room or "cell", in which a single chair is offered behind an open door, is quite possibly the most breathtaking thing I've ever seen in person. When I first stood in front of it (or rather, in front of a similar sculpture at Dia:Beacon in upstate New York - this one is owned privately) I was both horrified and elated. And somewhere in that mix of emotions I was moved. Intellectually and spiritually moved into a different place, from which I would never be the same again.

I saw several more of these spiders last year at the Hirshhorn's retrospective exhibition of her career. They were standing at the very end of a long series of galleries, and by the time I saw them, I was more than eager and nervous about the experience, wondering if they would have the same impact as the first time. And they did -- as magnificent as I had remembered, and perhaps more so because of what I had learned about her work in the interim. And that is how her art and her life will continue, with each and every time we encounter her sculptures, drawings, or paintings, wherever they are installed.

Ad Reinhardt's Black Paintings

I watched a documentary on Thomas Merton this weekend, as I have been thinking about him quite a bit this week after recently discussing his life and writings with an old friend of mine. Merton was an inspiration for me when I was in graduate school many years ago. His retreat from society in the 1930's to cloistered life at a Trappist monastery fascinated me, as did his dedication to prayer, surrendering his will and what he called "false ego" to God, and finding a new freedom in serving others. He was a Catholic writer and peace activist, and later expanded his theological writings to include a "demand of all humanity by God", including those outside the Christian world. Either God has all of us, or none of us. These convictions became the foundation for my own structures of belief that I had started to build for myself at the time, and which continue to stay with me today.

Merton was a close friend of Ad Reinhardt, the abstract painter who was well regarded for his "black paintings" of the 1960s. The artist also referred to them as his "ultimate paintings" because he felt he had taken his craft to the extreme and final end of abstraction, eliminating virtually all color and form. I first saw one of these works at the Berkeley Art Museum in 2001, during a visit there with my graduate professor, the late Doug Adams, who passionately described the friendship between the two men and the admiration Merton had for these paintings.

Here are two good examples, the second of which belongs to the permanent collection at the Tate Modern in London. As their curatorial notes indicate, this painting has an underlying grid of different colored squares divided by a green central horizontal band. Seen from top left, the squares are: red, blue, red, red, blue, red. Each of these colours was mixed with black paint to give a matte surface quality. But there is no mention of what Adams pointed out to me and my fellow classmates that afternoon in Berkeley, which is that there is also a square and symmetrical cross in the layers beneath the colors, which emerges slowly and quietly as the viewer allows. Perhaps it is that element - the cross - that drew Merton's attention. It certainly does for me.

Abstract Painting, 1960-65
Oil on canvas
60 x 60 in.

Abstract Painting No. 5, 1962
Oil on canvas
1524 x 1524 mm

Jackson Pollock

The chief aspect of the life and career of Jackson Pollock that has always fascinated me was his self-destructiveness. He struggled for years to achieve success and fame, and when he received it, following the period in which his "drip paintings" took the world by storm and landed him the cover of Life Magazine (1949), he abruptly abandoned the style altogether. He simply stopped making them. When he returned to work a few years following the magazine article, the color in his compositions was gone, as well as the all-over dripped lines of paint. Instead, he painted in black, some abstract compositions, but mostly figurative works that recalled some of his earliest pieces.Why would he have seemingly turned on himself and his success, at the peak of his fame? Why would he have abandoned the technique of drip painting that he had literally invented, and which had changed the course of modern art history?

The answer baffles me, and probably most others, as none of us will not ever be fully aware of an artist's intentions or process.

But yet I deeply appreciate the inner struggles that Pollock must have experienced, which ultimately prevented him from fully embracing the path of long term success and longevity his life might had taken. It would have been "easy" for him to continue his drip paintings, work with a commercial gallery in New York City, and make an absolute fortune along the way, enjoying every single moment that was given him. But he wasn't an easy man. And that's the very reason why his work was so brilliant, so groundbreaking, and so spectacular to absorb in person.

So the answers are in the paintings themselves. Here are my favorites, of which, among his non-drip paintings, Guardians of the Secret at SFMOMA tops the list.

Guardians of the Secret, 1943
Oil on canvas
48 3/8 x 75 3/8 in.

One: Number 31, 1950
Oil and enamel on canvas
8' 10 x 17' 5 5/8 in.

Number 1 (Lavender Mist), 1950
Oil, enamel, & aluminum on canvas
87 x 118 in.

Laurie Simmons: In and Around the House

It has been a year since my last entry, and I thought that writing about Laurie Simmons would be the perfect place to begin. Simmons was one of the first women photographers in the 1970s, creating work during a decade in which photography was still becoming accepted as a viable medium for art making. "In and Around the House", her seminal work from 1976-1978, is a series of photographs that depict scenes from the interior spaces of a dollhouse. These scenes are nostalgic and traditional, and what you might expect to find within its walls. However, on closer look, some of these scenes and in particular, the placement of the miniaturized dolls, are unexpected. One critic describes them to be "about the time of memory, and about those emotions which are fundamentally temporal: longing, nostalgia, presentiment, anxiety, expectation, dread." Simmons describes her pictures of the doll (which she named Jane, after her friend, the painter Jane Kaplowitz) as looking "empty and desolate. I felt that their mood counterbalanced the cuteness of the doll, and I surprised myself by finding them acceptable."

These two images are among my favorite from the series. In the first, Jane is seated on the floor, in between the chair in which she ought to be comfortably reclined, and the television opposite it. Instead, she has been displaced from her chair and positioned to face the viewer. It is a confrontational image, and one that calls into question the entire arrangement and its underlying meaning.

The same kind of displacement can apply to the second image, which depicts a messy kitchen either before or after a meal has been prepared. The clock reads a few minutes after 6:00, so most likely it is dinner time. It is filled with suggestions of a meal, and the hint of family, but there is none. Instead, it is empty and uncomfortable to view with every detail, including the arrangement of the chairs, in which a third (positioned between the table and the kitchen counter) has either fallen down or been knocked over. It is eerie, and the events either before or after this moment is left to the imagination of the viewer.

This series of photographs was most recently exhibited at Carolina Nitsch Project Room in New York in June 2008. Simmons lives and works in New York City and is represented by Sperone Westwater.

Woman/Interior IV, 1976
Black and white photograph
5 1/4 x 8 inches
Edition of 10

Empty Kitchen, 1976
Black and white photograph
5 1/4 x 8 inches
Edition of 10

Philip Guston at NGA

I read an article in the Washington Post this morning about the newly installed Guston paintings at the National Gallery of Art (from their permanent collection), and was happy to see that it was written from the art experience/art viewing perspective. In particular, the observation was made that by opening up the skylight in the tower of the National Gallery of Art, where the Gustons are now placed, the paintings could be viewed in an entirely new way - a way in which the paint becomes not just "tones", but colors that change and communicate with the viewer as the sunlight changes position above.

The author also asserts that Guston might have actually been a colorist - and that the deep pinks, reds, and oranges of his later cartoon work are good examples of his color method. I believe that although the subject matter and figuration are remarkably different from his earlier abstract paintings, his use of color remained the same and thereby functions as a common thread. Because if you look closely at the earlier works, you will generally see the same color palette and can determine, from knowing the cartoon paintings, that the artist is the same. Both periods of his career are important and provocative - and I would imagine that seeing these later paintings under natural light would definitely change our understanding of his technique. I'll have to go check this out in person soon...

Louise Bourgeois opens at the Hirshhorn

For the past several weeks, since the Louise Bourgeois survey opened at the Hirshhorn, I have been anxious to see her work again in person. This is one artist with whose work I have a real connection because of my visit to the attic of Dia:Beacon many years ago, where some of her most important pieces are permanently installed. During that visit, I had spent quite a long time on the main level, enjoying the beautiful open, airy, naturally lit spaces and the large open format of the galleries. Paintings and sculpture by Andy Warhol, Richard Serra, Agnes Martin, Sol LeWitt - these were pieces that we took in quite easily and with much joy.

But then, I climbed up the staircase to the small, cramped rooms of the attic, without knowing what awaited me (I must have neglected to read our guidebook). And I'll never forget the sight that I came face to face with -- Bourgeois' Spider. I had seen other versions of this bronzed sculpture at SFMOMA, but this one was different -- she was crouching over a cage (which is referred to as a "cell"), inside of which stood a single empty chair. It was an immediate reaction of both sheer terror and shock. In that dark attic, standing in front of what looked like a manifestation of someone's worst nightmare, I felt completely displaced and uneasy.

But at the same time, and as has been widely written about with regard to Bourgeois' Spiders, there was another sensibility that came over me as I continued to stand there. A sense that perhaps - somehow - this creature was carefully guarding and protecting whatever lied beneath her in that cage. Perhaps she was not a predator, but in fact a protector. But a protector of what? And who (or what) resided in that chair? Was this truly a cell - a prison - or a safe haven? Or was it a repository of the unknown, the subconscious, our fears and nightmares? These possibilities are totally ambivalent, and there is no easy answer. And I believe that within this dilemma rests the mind and soul of the viewer, left to determine which one makes the most sense.

The experience of viewing this particular work was definitely a journey of the mind and soul, and drives at the very heart of my perspective about art -- that the experience of art is found in the place (or displacement) where the viewer resides - when confronted by something disturbing, shocking, or intensely beautiful, the viewer is first stunned into stillness and contemplation, and then into intellectual movement, as the viewer tries to figure out their relationship with and response to that particular work. Much of these ideas are grounded in what I studied, read, and wrote about in graduate school and I'm dying to get out my old term papers and start writing again. There is so much to say. But in the meantime, a trip to the Hirshhorn is long overdue, and I can't wait to see if a Spider awaits me there.

Behind the Scenes at Sotheby's

These "private viewings" from Sotheby's are wonderful - I absolutely love hearing about the artworks from the specialists' point of view. And how delightful to see Koons' Banality sculpture up close, and what a thrill to get a glimpse of Richter's remarkable brushstrokes in Troisdorf. I also loved the description of the Fontana, learning how powerfully his materials (gold leaf, thick swirls of paint) communicate and convey the sensibilities of the world at that time - as well as the geography of Venice - and the rich history of religious painting and architecture of its beautiful churches. Love it all.

Michael Heizer at Dia: Beacon

When I was home last month for the holidays, I met up with an old friend for drinks and at some point the conversation steered towards art - Robert Smithson in particular. My friend had just discovered his work at an SFMOMA exhibition and was thrilled about finding beauty in such simple materials (in this particular work, dirt and mirrors). We also talked briefly about Smithson's well-known earthwork, Spiral Jetty, which is pivotal in contemporary art history (during the 1960's) as perhaps the best example of earthworks, or land art. And I started thinking about Dia: Beacon, my absolute favorite exhibition space, where many of the earthwork artists are embraced. Here, in the vast, empty, cavernous spaces of a former Nabisco warehouse, these large-scaled works can be displayed and enjoyed to their full capacity, as they were meant to be. A trip to Dia is an unique experience, something not replicated anywhere else in the country in typical museums or gallery spaces, simply because of the enormous scale of the warehouse and the vision & dedication of the board and founding directors.

So when I first turned the corner at Dia many years ago and came face to face with Michael Heizer's North, East, South, West, I had a visceral reaction about seeing something the size and scale of which I had never seen before. I literally came to a complete stop and at once felt a sense of awe and fear, because instead of looking at sculptures rising up in front of me, I found myself peering down into the vast darkness and depth of Heizer's work. They are called "negative" spaces, bronzed forms that sink deep into the ground below. It was an awesome experience to see his work in person, for the first time, without knowing anything about it beforehand, just like my friend's discovery of old materials seen in a brand-new way.

Like Smithson, Heizer works with materials of the earth, or "within" the earth as these negative sculptures can attest to. And his work completely (and literally in this case) flips upside down the notions and assumptions we have about art. Standing in front of these perfectly bronzed interior spaces and being moved by them - displaced by them - is exactly what I believe the experience of viewing art is all about - the movement of something inside of the mind and soul, from knowledge to discovery, from assumptions and prejudgments to something entirely new. It's uplifting and renewing, thrilling and humbling. I can only begin to imagine - but perhaps not, if my theory is correct about the art experience being fundamentally unpredictable - what it must feel like to stand in front of Smithson's Spiral Jetty in Utah, or Heizer's outdoor sculptures in Nevada, or Walter de Maria's Lightning Field in New Mexico. One day, I hope to find out.

Michael Heizer, North, East, South, West, conceived in 1967

Gregory Crewdson

The first time I saw a Crewdson photograph, several years ago in one of our contemporary corporate collections, I was struck by the eerie yet peaceful quality of both the composition and the subject matter. How had the artist achieved such a strange and perfect balance? Later I learned that all of his work is choreographed and staged, in either an interior stage set or on location, with a deeply articulated philosophy behind the finished product.

In this recent interview with Crewdson, we get a glimpse into his creative process and perspective, which encompasses all of the reasons why I love contemporary art so much. He describes how his work presents a tension or "collision" of diametrically opposed values, between the familiar and the strange, and the mysterious and the beautiful. And when those values come together, there is a "moment of grace" - an alignment between subject and artist - and I would argue - between artwork and viewer - because of the very nature of tension and the energizing movement required to resolve it.

Viewing Rothko

I've been thinking about the Rothko room at the Phillips Collection since I first saw the space about six months ago. I can't seem to get it off my mind....which means it's time for a second visit. It's rare that an artist commands the installation of his or her work in a museum, especially within a permanent collection which normally is the pride and joy of a senior curator, and so this room is quite extraordinary. The floorplan was organized by Mark Rothko in 1960 for his benefactor and museum founder, Duncan Phillips, with the intention of providing visitors with the best possible environment to view his paintings. He wanted the large canvases to be installed in a "small, intimate space - in a scale of normal living - so that they would overwhelm the walls, saturating the room with color and sensation." The gallery would have one door, a simple bench in the center, and the paintings to be hung low to the floor.

So that when visitors enter the room, like I did earlier this year, they couldn't help but want to sit down on the little bench and let the paintings take over the space, and eventually, their sensations, just as Rothko intended. This viewing experience, as well as Rothko's very intentional planning for this room, reinforces my personal point of view about art - that when we talk about art, it's not necessarily about what "is" art, but where it is. In this small gallery, sitting on a humble bench, art is present - within the space between the paintings and the viewer, as well as between the artist and the viewer - knowing that in that moment, Rothko's hopes and vision for the experience were being fulfilled.

When the Rothko Chapel in Houston opened 32 years ago, it was inaugurated with an small evening reception - lit solely by candlelight - as told to me by a professor in graduate school who had attended. Imagine viewing one of these luminous paintings by the flickering light from a candle - adding movement and dimension to the cloudy, layered spaces in the margins between each color field. The intersection between art and spirituality, embraced within this chapel that night, perhaps fully realized.

Rothko room, Phillips Collection, Washington DC

Into the Blue -- Yves Klein

I fell in love with the work of Yves Klein not because of the varying subject matter or medium, but because of the drenched, intoxicating color that he virtually invented, inspired by the lapis lazuli pigment used to paint the Virgin Mary's robes during the Renaissance, named International Klein Blue (IKB). It is impossible not to get lost in this space, framed and contextualized by color alone, and then to work your way back out of it, perhaps changed, perhaps not, but either way, affected by it.

Yves Klein, IKB 191, 1962

The irony of beauty

One of the aspects of the art experience that I find most interesting is the tension between the physical beauty of a composition and the darkness of the subject matter. Take these two paintings of Mao Zedong for example (brought to mind by the Beijing Olympics, which in itself is a bit ironic - who can forget the beautiful voice of the little girl singing the national anthem at the opening ceremonies, which turned out having belonged to another little girl, who was deemed by the Chinese authorites as not being pretty enough to sing it in person??)

The figure of Mao is problematic - a communist dictator who persecuted and oppressed the people of China and began a dark chapter in this vast country's great history. But yet these two paintings are technically "beautiful" to observe - Warhol turns Mao into a pop icon, similar to his portraits of Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor - and instantly we smile at this man's face, which normally should make us uneasy.

And Kiefer reminds us of the natural beauty and grace of flowers in abundance, even while they are thrown (all 1,000 of them) at the feet of a dictator, shown here in a Hitler-styled posture that brings to mind another set of sorrows. So here we are, as viewers, caught between the beauty and the darkness - and where do we go? Where do our minds and souls rest in between this tension? How do we resolve it internally? This is where I believe "art" resides - in this dialogue - in this relationship between us and the painting, us and the artist, and within ourselves.

Andy Warhol, Mao

Anselm Kiefer, Let a Thousand Flowers Bloom

Finding spirituality through art

Before I can begin discussing artworks in this blog, I'd like to put some parameters around my own concept of art and its relationship to the spirit (the soul). Because the definition of "art" varies depending on with whom you're talking, where you're looking at it, and how it's being perceived. It's been debated, discussed, written about, lectured on, and defined by scholars, art critics, dealers, curators, auction house professionals, gallerists, collectors, professors, and artists themselves. So what is it? I don't think anyone has agreed upon one particular definition - but here is my interpretation - formulated during the time I wrote my master's thesis:

Art exists in the space between the artwork and the viewer. It is a movement, a cause and effect, a relationship. It happens when an artwork (painting, sculpture, text, music, etc) causes movement in the viewer - makes them stop what they were doing, stand, look, observe, think, contemplate, consider, debate, become energized, sad, happy, enlightened, disheartened, humbled, encouraged, etc. At some point the soul (heart, mind, etc - however it's experienced by that individual) is moved - put into motion - and is restored to itself or energized from within. From that place of restoration and energy, the soul is then lifted upward to a new place of understanding of either itself or the object being considered. That is art - or rather - that is where art exists.

So for me, for my first post about the meaning of "spirituality through art" and my observations thereof, I will share this image of Tintoretto's masterpiece, which I viewed for the first time in Venice in 1997. It literally stopped me in my tracks, forced me not only to look, but to "see" with my mind's eye the real, historic suffering of Jesus Christ - through not just the Protestant cerebral understanding of what Christ's death symbolizes - but what Jesus, the man, actually went through during his physical suffering and death, as Tintoretto so dramatically brought to our attention. In other words, it actually happened -- and this is what it most likely looked like -- a very real crucifixion in a larger context of onlookers, executioners, mourners, witnesses, and landscape, including heaven's response through the darkened skies above.

And in this process of my own spiritual conversion while viewing this painting, I also experienced a deep and powerful understanding of both the power of an artwork (either religious in subject matter or not) and an individual's ability to receive this artwork and be moved by it. The experience changed my life forever; it led the way towards my confirmation in the Catholic church a year later, and opened the door to a new journey for me in which I began my graduate work and career exploring theology, art history, art theory/aesthetics, philosophy, and the trials and tribulations of the art market. It has been and continues to be quite an adventure.

Jacopo Robusti detto il Tintoretto, Crucifixion

Art through the eyes of my son

"God, where are you?" asked my 3 year old son, as we were walking through the National Cathedral this morning before mass. It was only his 5th of 6th time accompanying me to church, and as we had approached our destination in the car, in order to make the experience a bit more accessible, I had told him that we were headed to church to say "hello" to God. So I guess his question was the natural, logical progression from my set-up: "God, where are you? We're here to say hello to you!" We wandered through the maze of small stone stairways, which were tucked away from the main corridors, and into the little chapels, prayer alcoves, and various altars. Eventually we made our way down into the crypt where we continued our journey. In one quiet chapel, set aside by the cathedral for meditation and personal prayers, my son somehow instinctively said "No loud noises, Mama", as if he had known instantly the spiritual purpose of this room, to which I smiled and giggled as I watched him slowly make his way towards the back wall where a colorful mosaic stood waiting for him.

As we approached the last few destinations in our quest, we stumbled across a little nook marked for prayers of The Good Shepherd. Above a little altar was a sculpture - a stone relief of Jesus as a young man, lovingly holding a sheep in his arms, and gazing down at us. My son looked at me with great concentration and said quite seriously and simply, "This is where God is sitting". I almost fell on the floor - because as he said it - I felt an immediate sense of the holy spirit enveloping us both. And what does Christ say? When 2 or more are gathered in His name, that is where church resides. For me, this morning, in that quiet and humble nook, in that sacred fleeting moment with my son - that was my worship service. Through his eyes, I could see.