"Van Gogh On View at the Phillips Collection"

"Van Gogh: Repetitions" looks at how the artist regularly created closely related versions of the same subjects. The canvases were not intended as "copies," but rather were opportunities to extend and perfect previous attempts. Van Gogh's early efforts built on the work of others— such as Millet's "The Sower" and Adolphe Monticelli's depictions of floral bouquets. Keenly interested in describing the life of the working classes, there are multiple versions of a weaver— three from a total of 20 Van Gogh executed, each in a different medium (one oil, one pencil and watercolor, one pen and ink drawing) arranged along a single wall in reverse chronological order, as if with each example we advance deeper into some imaginary artistic archaeological dig. 

Family resemblances, one might say, unifies the various sets of works— paintings that maintain an essential integrity of scope and focus, but involve sometimes tiny shifts— the hue of a lamppost, the repositioning of door frames or the sizing of a window, the vigor or pattern of brushstrokes that comprise the sky— the reworking of a passage in order to subtly reconstitute the scene. One of the finest examples of this process is found in a pair of canvases that comprise the entirety of the first gallery, the Phillips Collections’ “The Road Menders” [1889] and the Cleveland Museum of Arts’ “The Large Plane Trees” [1889]. The two are magnificent works, Cleveland’s painted on site, the Phillips’ a later reworking. Overlays reveal very minimal variations of the objects and elements and, yet, the canvases convey palpably different moods. 

Sometimes the “family resemblance” was literal, as with Van Gogh’s multiple portraits of the various Roulin family members during his time in Arles. “You have to paint several of them before you find a whole with the character,” Van Gogh wrote to brother Theo in a letter 14/15 July 1889 [#789]. The exhibition features several versions of the Postman Joseph Roulin, his wife Augustine (in the form of “La Berceuse”), and their infant daughter Marcelle, as well as a single canvas of middle son Camille. Even though some of the canvases were familiar to me from visits to the Met or the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Van Gogh Museum, the Kroller-Müller Museum or special exhibitions, there was a delight in seeing them lined up side-by-side for close inspection. It had snowed the day before in Washington, so we had the galleries almost to ourselves at times. There was the possibility of time-taking, the pleasure of looking close then again from another vantage across the room.

The most pleasurable of the lot for me, though, was “Farmhouse in Provence,” which was not part of any set in the exhibition, though it clearly derived from Van Gogh’s love of Millet. The harmony of color within the frame was nothing short of musical— a blue of sky over the simple farmhouse that radiates a tranquil turquoise, offset by wisps of cloud; feathery saffron-tinged grasses across the field that a solitary farmer wades through; a jutting stone wall which the farm lies behind, acting like a barrier that holds the domesticated world at bay; bursts of red-blossomed flowers waving in the light. And, though by rights a canvas is silent, Van Gogh’s countryside seemed anything but frozen, it felt marvelously alive. The air full of the thrum of crickets and buzzing unseen insects, the murmur of a breeze flowing through grasses and leaves. Writing to Theo about one of his tiny studies of the Roulin infant, Vincent wrote to Theo that “A newborn baby has the infinite in its eyes.” One senses that Van Gogh sought to see through those same eyes.

“Van Gogh: Repetitions” has been extended at The Phillips Collection until next Sun, February 2^nd. Entry is $12 for adults, $10 for students. For other details, see www.phillipscollection.org

"War/Photography: Images of Armed Conflict and Its Aftermath," Brooklyn Museum

Visitors need to be prepared for a walk through the Brooklyn Museum's exhibition "War / Photography: Images of Armed Conflict and Its Aftermath." It is dense, filled with emotional complexity, full of images hard to face head-on. In all, there are 400 photographs— yes, 400!— from an array of historical periods and conflicts, prints and printed material from newspapers and magazines representing a broad spectrum of the war experience. There are photos of the heat of battle, of recruitment and training, military life and its routine, the aftermath of conflict, coming home, the remembrance of the experience and the memorialization of the dead. The images are populated by soldiers, by-standers, families left behind, officers carrying out strategy, politicians responsible for decisions to deploy. And, while it is tempting to read these images through stock categories that generalize and simplify, and to believe that because of the medium what we are seeing is definitive and real, I was struck by the gray that lives within so many of these photographs. More often than not it was something beyond the frame that captured my attention: How did this [soldier / victim / spouse / priest / etc] get here? Why is the journalist capturing it? Is it fair? Is it "true"? What is the story that the picture is trying to tell (even, sometimes, in spite of the photographer's intent)? The more time I lingered, looking and thinking, the more it felt like "War/Photography" was aptly named— not with one word playing adjective to the other, but rather the two elements intersecting, their collision leaving complicated markings that remain for the rest of us to try to figure out.

"War/Photography" is at the Brooklyn Museum until 2nd February.

For more info, and to see some of the images from the exhibition, visit the Museum's exhibit webpage at: http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/exhibitions/war_photography/

"Edgar Allan Poe: Terror of the Soul"

I've been meaning to get to this exhibition for two months now; I'm posting this review so as to prod myself to action. Poe remains a mysterious and fascinating figure, the man William Carlos Williams said "gives the sense for the first time in America, that literature is serious, not a matter of courtesy but of truth.” From manuscripts and letters to a copy of an 1845 edition of the New-York Mirror on which is printed "The Raven," this looks like a winner. And, since I've waited until Dec, I can now also visit the original manuscript of Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol." A collection of drawings by Da Vinci are also currently on view. More to come...

"Edgar Allen Poe: Terror of the Soul" runs until 26th Jan. The Morgan Library is free on Friday evenings from 7-9 pm.

For more info, see the Morgan Library's webpage at: http://www.themorgan.org/exhibitions/exhibition.asp?id=82



The NYT review is here: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/04/books/edgar-allan-poe-exhibition-opens-at-the-morgan.html?smid=fb-share

Richard Tuschman's Photographs: The Hopperesque World Distilled

I came across this link on Slate.com today: Wonderful photographic constructions by Richard Tuschman of the world-view that Edward Hopper put to canvas. The images, constructed in miniature  of staged settings, are informed by Hopper's work rather than attempt to reproduce it. Quiet, stillness, and intrigue all seem embedded in them. There is a hovering air of cinematic suspense. Tuschman's photos definitely give a sense of how Hopper's artistic vision has left a residue of how to see urban alienation— lonely, contemplative 1950s American life.

Have a look:

http://www.slate.com/blogs/behold/2013/11/25/richard_tuschman_edward_hopper_recreations_are_inspired_by_the_painter_s.html

"!2 Years A Slave" [dir., Steve McQueen]

It's incredibly difficult to know what to say about "12 Years A Slave.“ The film depicts the enslavement of Solomon Northup, a musician and free-born African American living in New York, lured to Washington, DC with the offer of a job performing, then is drugged and sold into slavery. Given a new name (Platt) and transported to the slave market in New Orleans, Northup is bought and traded amongst several owners eventually arriving at the plantation of Edwin Epps, where he lives for more than a decade until, with the help of an itinerant Canadian carpenter who held abolitionist views, he is able to secure his freedom. The film, directed by Steve McQueen and starring Chiwetel Elijofor as Northup, is brutally violent, deeply tragic, and morally complex, as it depicts perhaps as accurately as any film ever has the American experience of chattel slavery. It is hard to know how to capture even a portion of what the film delivers.

But while it’s difficult to know what to say about “12 Years” — save that the film should be seen— I suspect (and hope) that it will inspire lots of talking afterwards. That is every bit as it should be. It is a film that opens a door for conversations that we are often anxious to avoid, or worse don’t even see the need for. This summer we paid a visit to Colonial Williamsburg. Amongst the historic buildings, quaint shopfronts, and restaurants and gift shops, the tobacco plantation, with its program on the slave experience, had to be sought out— the plantation was set apart and the program required registration and was for limited numbers. As we sat on rough log benches under the blazing July sun, the historical interpreters — Robert Watson and Henry Caldwell— laid out candidly but sensitively the history of American slavery: such as the system of triangular trade, changes in laws of primogeniture made to preserve slavery as an institution, the devastating effects of the slave trade on family, sexual violence against women slaves, the genocide of Native Americans, how Christianity was deployed in the defense of slavery. They passed around heavy metal shackles, copies of slave market announcements, we stood in the hot fields picking bugs off tobacco leaves, we heard the crack of the lash against the plantation’s “whipping tree.” It was a powerful afternoon. Yet, our guides noted how nearly everyday, there are those who attend their program who deny that slavery happened in the way they depict. Many want desperately to believe we live in a post-racial America, that even if we accept this history that it has all been undone.

Somewhere in the first third of the film, Northup/Platt finds himself being punished by an overseer he has offended, who is determined to put him in his place. Northrup is strung up on the thick branch of a giant oak there in the plantation’s front yard, and though he is saved before he is killed, the act that protects Northup’s life is not so just as to allow for cutting him down. Instead, Northup is left dangling, surviving by the barest of margins as he stands on tiptoes struggling to maintain his balance in a tiny puddle of mud. As the camera lingers, life resumes around Northup: the master who saved him eventually departs, the terrified slaves emerge from their quarters where they have taken refuge, a couple of children play in the yard, the plantation’s mistress comes out to look for a time, then retreats back into her elaborate home. All the while, Northup literally hangs in the balance, struggling to make his footwork hold. Only one slave girl risks bringing him a tin cup full of water. That scene seemed to me to capture so much of what “12 Years A Slave” is about: the horror and violence of slavery is right there in front of us; can we find a way to discuss it and learn from it, rather than let privilege, hatred, or even fear allow us look away?

"Ruby Bridges"

In 1960, six year old Ruby Bridges became the first African American student to integrate the New Orleans public school system. Escorted by four federal agents and running a gauntlet of an untamed racist mob outside, she made her way to an empty classroom— white parents withheld their children rather than let them share a classroom with her. In the end, it was just her and Mrs Henry, her teacher. The two remain friends all these years later. Speaking tonight at the NCHC conference here in New Orleans, Ms Bridges reminded us of the lesson she learned all those years ago: "Racism is an adult disease. We need to stop using children to spread it." Here she is, depicted in an iconic work by Norman Rockwell: a small but determined girl, protected by officers who no matter how strong and tall can't shield her from the sting of hateful speech and the fear of violence. Still, there is a stoicism about her that lets us know this is someone who, against odds and obstacles, will make her way. Tonight she showed that, despite the wounds and ravages endured over the past half century, she has and is still.

"The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier": Brooklyn Museum

My take on the Gaultier retrospective currently running at the Brooklyn Museum, published today in the Pandorian. 

A well-worn teddy bear (Nana, circa 1957) with a drawn-on face and pasted on cone-shaped breasts that the five-year old Gaultier constructed out of newsprint greets the visitor in one of the first displays in the new Jean Paul Gaultier retrospective at the Brooklyn Museum. A wardrobe with vintage women’s undergarments, a 1950s black and white television, and a childhood photograph of the designer nestled against his grandmother provide a cinematic mise-en-scene. Text has Gaultier telling a story about watching a program about the Folies-Bergere on his grandmother’s TV set. The next day at school, he sketched the dancers complete with frilly dresses and fishnet stockings, resulting in a rapping on the knuckles from his favorite teacher. But, just as quickly, it transformed him from the sissy who preferred drawing to football into a hero with his peers.

It is a fitting beginning, coming as it does just after a room filled with highlights from Gaultier collections, designs that challenge boundaries of culture, class, gender and sexuality, all the while maintaining a childlike sense of play. Four beautiful gowns from 2008’s “Mermaid” collection feature latex bodysuits accented with fins shaped by sequin embroideries, the bras and corsets made of shimmering cowrie shells. 2007’s “Virgins” collection, inspired by medieval Christian iconography, includes “Immaculata” a stunning crocheted gown with linen appliqués of printed cherubs, and “Apparitions,” which features a bustier of cherubs and flora printed against a sky blue field, an ivory silk overskirt, and a halo-style headdress complete with the Virgin Mother. There are “Pin-Up Boys” (collection, 1996), “Boy-Toys” (collection, 1984), and androgynous sailor-style attire from “Ze Parisienne” (collection, 2002).

Throughout the exhibition, which features 140 ensembles from both his haute couture and pret-á-porter work as well as fashion photographs, video displays of runway shows and television advertisements, and preparatory sketches, Gaultier buoyantly courts controversy and turns convention on its head. At almost every turn, he credits his grandmother for nurturing these impulses. Interviewed by exhibition curator Thierry-Maxime Loriot of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts on the evening of the opening in Brooklyn, Gaultier recounted a story of finding corsets in his grandmother’s wardrobe and asking her what they were. “She was very open with me,” he said with wry irony, telling the young boy how women sometimes drank vinegar to induce stomach spasms in order to fit into them. Gaultier’s contribution was to transform this morsel into an insight about the erotic nature of corsets, bras, and bustiers— how to deploy them not as mechanisms of female bodily imprisonment but as symbols of raw feminine sexual emancipation and power.

It doesn’t hurt, of course, that the whiff of celebrity surrounds Gaultier. There are gowns worn by pop stars Beyoncé and Kylie Minogue and supermodels Naomi Campbell and Linda Evangelista, high art fashion photographs by the likes of Cindy Sherman and Alix Malka, and even clips from the 1990s of Gaultier hosting the English TV series “Eurotrash.” Madonna’s iconic cone-breasted corsets and armor-like bodices worn on her “Blond Ambition” tour (1989-90), are complemented by Gaultier’s sketchbook designs and a series of Polaroids from the original fittings.

But though Gaultier may enjoy all the attention, he seems hardly bothered by celebrity imprimatur. “Nonconformist designer seeks unusual models,” reads an advert he placed in a French newspaper. “The conventionally pretty need not apply.” He consciously chooses runway models of different ages, races, genders and shapes. His designs embrace clothing that is beyond gender, hypersexualized, sensitive to the creativity of the street. Several collections inspired by the punk movement (displayed in front of spray-painted graffiti) embrace anti-materialism, incorporating recycled elements and fabrics that are enriched and transformed under Gaultier’s creative eye. Gaultier longs to expand our notions of what is beautiful, using the “second skin” of clothing as the sketchbook through which we unmask our inner selves. “Our body, the way we present ourselves— it’s a form of communication,” he exalts. If this retrospective in Brooklyn is a measure of Gaultier’s message, fashion should celebrate our individuality and diversity, embodying the kinetic energy of our global melting pot. Most of all, Gaultier goads us to mimic Cyndi Lauper: he encourages all of us to just want to have fun.

“The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier: From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk” runs at the Brooklyn Museum (www.brooklynmuseum.org) until 23 February 2014. Admission is $15. The museum is open Wednesday and Friday thru Sunday, 11 am – 6 pm, Thursdays 11 am – 10 pm.

(http://thepandorian.com/2013/10/the-fashion-world-of-jean-paul-gaultier-brooklyn-museum/)