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05/02/2005: "Texas, New York, Philadelphia" by Sue Spaid
Between a fecund spring, bizarrely book-ended by two spontaneous snowstorms, and a plethora of amazing art exhibitions, April has been one of the most glorious months ever. I managed to visit museums in Texas, Pennsylvania and New York City. Maybe this would be better as T.V.!
Houston-
I arrived six hours later than scheduled, so I was lucky that the MFA is open late Saturday nights and my parents were eager to check out some exhibitions! Our first stop was CAM, whose “Double Consciousness: Black Conceptual Art Since 1970” expanded our conception of conceptual art to include intuitive works like Chakaia Booker’s tire strip sculptures, Senga Ngudi’s sand installation and Bert Long’s compelling frozen installation, which was surprisingly colorful. Another great surprise was Beth Coleman and Howard Goldkrand’s Mobile Stealth Unit (Pink Noise #2) (1999), a giant motor cycle geared to go.
Downstairs was a delightful exhibition of Bodys Isek Kingelez’s magical maquettes for urban dwellings, which would look amazing if anyone would actually build them. En route to the MFA, we passed Jésus Rafael Soto’s Penetrable amarillio (1973/1995), a wonderful participatory work that turns your vista yellow, when you are standing amidst hundreds of dangling yellow tubes. I had come to see “African Art Now: Masterpieces from the Jean Pigozzi Collection,” so I felt fortunate that Alfredo Jaar’s The Eyes of Gutete Emerita was also on view, since I was preparing for my upcoming talk on refugees. Two standouts in the contemporary African exhibition were Phillip Kwame Apagya Come on Board (2000), which consisted of photographs of people with various painted backdrops that seem totally real at first glance, and Romuald Hazoumé Benin Roulette (2003-4), a sculpture that honors daring entrepreneurs, who drive bikes loaded-down with plastic jugs to Nigeria and buy cheaper gasoline , which they sell in Benin. My mom found the exhibition of 200 jewels and watches from the “Cartier Collection” particularly gratifying. The objects’ details were amazingly intricate, but I enjoyed Ettore Sottsass’s exquisite exhibition design even more. The next day, we drove to Galveston to see a hilarious play, “Red, White and Tuna,” which I heartily recommend if you enjoy a good belly laugh. But, it may not make any sense if you’re not Texan!
Dallas/Ft. Worth
This time, my parents were also eager to visit the DMA. They had their eyes set on an exhibition about China’s last emperor and I wanted to see Robert Smithson’s survey for a second time, especially since the first time I missed video concerning Asphalt Rundown, his Rome project described in my January blog. I also wanted to find Smithson’s drawing that reveals where he got his Sanibel shells, which somehow I forgot is dedicated to Andy, so he must have traded it to Warhol for art or cash. The site is Sanibel’s most southwestern beach, so if I was there, it was accidental. I even appreciated the Chinese exhibition, whose Accoustiguide tracks for kids were much more enjoyable than their adult counterparts. After the DMA, I crossed the street, hoping to catch the Nasher Sculpture Center, designed by Renzo Piano, before it closed. I got a brief peak, but they were still on winter hours, so I missed some parts. When I returned to the DMA, I found my dad talking to a Japanese environmental artist named Ritsuko Taho, who we invited along to our next stop, Patricia Johanson’s Fairpark Lagoon inside the State of Texas Fairgrounds. We drove to Ft. Worth for dinner and discovered Zoë, a real deal on Tuesday nights. Not only are all delicious dishes two for one, but wines are half-price. I highly recommend it, even on a full-price day!
If you ever get going too early to visit museums, just head over to the local Botanical Garden. They typically open around 8am, except during winter hours when they open when museums do! The Ft. Worth Botanical Garden, just around the corner from the museums, has the largest Japanese Garden I’ve ever seen. All Ft. Worth museums post signs saying “Firearms are not permitted in the Museum,” which is quite startling. Which incident inspired such warnings? We made a day of the Modern Art Museum of Ft. Worth, designed by Tadao Ando, the same Japanese architect whose buildings I trekked all over western Japan to experience last October. After basking for an hour in the glowing Dan Flavin retrospective, my parents and I had a private docent-led 90 minute tour of the permanent collection. Afterwards, we sat out doors in the museum’s gorgeous cafeteria, encircled by a reflection pool, and ate a really great meal. After scoping out the giant Serra sculpture, we headed to the Kimbell next store which was partially closed for installation. I have no doubt that my parents will return with friends to see the recently opened Islamic Art from the Victoria and Albert Museum. Looking around European Painting, I noticed how many of works in their collection are quite small, including their Chardin, Watteau, Turner and Friederich. Their 1427 Fra Angelico caught my eye. We dropped by the adjacent Amon Carter Museum, which really seemed strange, since all of the temporary exhibitions seemed to be either prints, etchings or photographs. Maybe that is their new found focus. They still seem to be mourning the death of Philip Johnson, their beloved architect who built them a museum, an addition and a total renovation. I was intrigued to learn that the Amon Carter own the entire estate of experimental photographer Carlotta Corpron, who studied with Moholy-Nagy and Gyorgy Kepes. On the way out of Ft. Worth, we stopped ever so briefly at the Water Gardens, Philip Johnson’s mid-‘70s notion of an urban park, replete with concrete terraces, nondescript fountains and drained pools, which avoids drownings, but attracts skateboarders.
Contemporary Arts Museum- www.camh.org
Museum of Fine Arts Houston- www.mfah.org
Dallas Museum of Art- www.dm-art.org
Modern Art Museum of Ft. Worth – www.themodern.org
Amon Carter Museum of Art- www.cartermuseum.org
Philadelphia, Lewisburg and Columbus-
If you can believe, I was heading off a snowstorm in early April, driving through eastern Ohio. The snow was so mesmerizing that I opted for a hotel, hours before I had planned to stop, on the shortest night of the year (spring forward). The next morning, I brushed off four inches of snow and headed on to Philadelphia, all the while wondering why I was such an idiot to be swerving in the wind just to see the ICA’s Barry Le Va survey. Is art worth skidding off freeways and slamming into trucks? The wintry storm caught everyone off guard, so no one was salting roads. After 150 miles, the snow disappeared, the sun came out and I managed to meet up with friends at the ICA around 1:30pm. Being the last day of the show, I was glad that I had persevered. Mostly drawings, accompanied by a handful of “distributions,” the survey was totally inspiring. Afterward, Annette Monnier and I drove over to the Black Floor Gallery, an alternative space initiated by a handful of ex-Cincinnati artists Annette, Gerrick and Print Liberation’s Nick and Jamie, to see an exhibition by Cincinnati artists Beth Graves and Russell Ihrig. Their whole live/work set-up really took me back to my twenties, when loads of friends inhabited raw spaces, only to transform rather unlivable digs into palaces. I was really pleased to see them so productive. Confused about the time change (my watch said 3:30, but my car clock said 4:30), I continued on to the PMA to see the Salvador Dalí survey. And what luck, instead of closing at 5pm, the museum was open until 8 pm that night. The show was totally spectacular and the didactic panels were incredibly well written, though some visibly offended viewers might have been relieved to learn that the Surrealists were actually quite prudish (by today’s standards) when it came to sexual practices, so Dalí’s sexual content was probably more fantastical than representational. Hilariously, there was a press release announcing the impressive Dalí shop, which was an understatement. I rarely purchase anything, even catalogs, in museum shops, but I “shopped” here- a mug, tattoos and lip lollipops (made in Cincinnati, of course).
I then headed west to Lewisburg for dinner with friends Tulû Bayar and Tolga Sakman. The next morning, I arose to complete sunshine and warmth, which aided my completing a power-point presentation. That afternoon, I delivered “Refugees: Refuge, Refusal, Refuel (and Return),” in conjunction with Tulû Bayar and Xiaoze Xie’s installation Shelter, a temporary tent covered in sewn panels printed with newspaper photographs of refugee situations. Inside the tent was an amazing cube stacked with clothes from myriad kinds of regional dress. On my way home, I stopped in Columbus to see exhibitions by Charles LaBelle and David Humphrey at Rebecca Ibel Gallery. I then headed over to the Belmont Building to see a great exhibition Landscape Confection that featured energetic landscapes by favorites Lisa Sanditz, Amy Sillman, Michael Raedecker, Kori Newkirk and Katie Pratt.
Institute of Contemporary Art- www.icaphila.org
Black Floor Gallery- www.blackfloorgallery.com
Philadelphia Museum of Art- www.philamuseum.org
Samek Art Gallery, Bucknell University- www.departments.edu/samek_artgallery
Rebecca Ibel Gallery- www.rebeccaibel.com
Wexner Center for the Arts- www.wexarts.org
New York City
Not only Texas institutions have winter hours. After a relaxing mid-day lunch at Dia:Beaconm we were shocked when the guards said they would be closing in 30 minutes. Our leisurely pace suddenly turned into a scram around, though we made it through. Fortunately, we had spent a lot of time with Agnes Martin’s early works, which is what we came to see in the first place. I also wanted to further examine Robert Ryman’s wall work, which is even more interesting than I had remembered. This is the work I wish had made him famous.
The next morning I went directly to the Guggenheim and was so pleased by Daniel Buren’s installation that I wanted to scream. It was so glorious, though I can’t imagine what it’s like on a dreary day. My day was so sunny that the whole thing glistened like a crystalline cave. I only wish there had been 5-10 more works, so others could grasp his range of discrete works, especially his striped square split into parts that get hung separately. But alas, Buren animated the curving galleries, along with two colorful window schemes in the Modern galleries that related to the building’s architecture. He also installed various groupings of stripe paintings in the first-floor Ramp Gallery. On the way out, I asked why there were no post cards to purchase, since it’s so difficult to explain. The woman at the Guggenheim member’s desk remarked how most visitors complained about the show, so postcards seemed fruitless. Not me! Also on view were Slater Bradley’s videos inspired by fawning fans in light of fallen rock stars, and Rirkrit Tiravanija’s instructional piece on how to set-up and operate low-power television stations.
I next headed to the Met to revisit Diane Arbus’s survey, which I had already seen, and to experience the incredible Max Ernst Survey. Unlike Dalí in Phillie, the galleries were practically empty, so one could really study Ernst’s development and creative impulse. Whatever the century, Met exhibitions typically feel as fresh as a gentle breeze, as compared to the stodginess of the Whitney or the blandness of MOMA exhibitions. I then head to the Asia Society to see half of the contemporary Indian survey and a small Michael Joo exhibition. The survey was interesting, but it left me wondering whether there weren’t better artists and how were these selected. Indian culture is incredibly contemporary, so perhaps this show was organized by an outside observer, rather than a local cultural worker who’s part of the scene. My final stop for the day was the Whitney, where I experienced surveys by Tim Hawkinson and Cy Twombly, as well as Ellen Gallagher’s recent prints, which were totally fascinating.
The next day, I explored MOMA’s temporary exhibitions, Groundswell, Thomas Demand and The UBS Collection, which held a special significance for me. In 1986, I worked at PaineWebber, Inc., whose collection UBS later acquired, and then moved to S.G. Warburg, which UBS also acquired. Both jobs had been a stone’s throw from MOMA and on several occasions, I was scolded for spending too much time at MOMA, so it was funny to see the collection there. I headed out to PS1 to see Greater New York, which seemed overly consumed by Red Grooms, paper, rails and animals. Memorable works include Rina Banerjee’s sprawl, James Yamada’s smoking house, Dominic McGill’s incredible post WWII historical drawing, Kirsten Hassenfeld’s hallway lamp and Ryan Johnson’s Ramblin Man. Only a few weeks earlier, a young artist had asked me why no one took Red Grooms seriously, which I couldn’t answer, but at least I know why he asked that. The next day’s highlight was the Larry Clark Survey at the ICP, which attracted suits and groovers alike that afternoon. Just when you think you know every photograph he ever made, you realize that you’ve never read the autobiographical account accompanying Teen Lust or seen all of the bulletin board work and T.V. clips. Clark got a late start on his art career, but he has been prolific since 1990. One of the hardest working artists around, the survey conveys his concerns about and admiration for kids. Gagosian uptown featured Martin Kippenberger’s first body of work, ten stellar paintings from 1981 that someone else painted, which made sense in light of his paintings at Luhring Augustine, which were far more intuitive and expressionistic (he might not have painted these either). Fearless Vampire Killers at Casey Kaplan’s was one of the best group shows I’ve ever seen in NYC, which made me realize that Greater New York could/should have been much better than it was. Frances Stark’s new work at CRG was really excellent, a treat for the mind and eyes, that had a lot going on.
On my last day, I scooted through the Basquiat exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, which was definitely worth the trip, though there weren’t enough of those paintings that make you wonder, “How did he know all that?” I tried to fit in the second half of the Indian show at the Queens Museum of Art, but didn’t, so I headed toward midtown to the Japan Society to see Little Boy, Takashi Murakami’s exhibition featuring all aspects of Japanese Otaku, manga and contemporary art. While awaiting the Laguardia bus, I got to see Sue De Beer’s installation at the adjacent Whitney Museum at Altria.
Dia: Beacon- www.diabeacon.org
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum of Art- www.guggenheim.org
Metropolitan Museum of Art- www.metmuseum.org
Whitney Museum of American Art- www.whitney.org
Museum of Modern Art- www.moma.org
P.S. 1- www.ps1.org
International Society of Photography- www.icp.org
Brooklyn Museum of Art- www.brooklynmuseum.org
Japan Society- www.jpnsoc.org
