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04/24/2006: "Maastricht - Portland - Los Angeles - Chicago" by Sue Spaid
Maastricht to Hamburg
A visit over spring break with my Belgian beau, coincided with his interest to visit TEFAF, Europe’s largest “luxury” fair, and my desire to meet artist/curator Anke Mellin, who lives north of Hamburg. Given the distances between U.S. cultural centers, the concept of driving an hour to Maastricht in Holland, followed by another 90 minute drive to Cologne in Germany, is a convenient wonder. Having never visited Maastricht, I was totally shocked by its apparent wealth as compared to other Dutch cities. Had we not checked out the town center first, I might have considered a “Dutch luxury fair” a juxtaposition in terms! Decked out for TEFAF in a red gabardine Margiela skirt, grey woolen leggings and gold sandals, I felt fine afoot on this wintry Thursday. Strangely, I received scores of indignant stares from the black-boot faction, as if I had broken some local taboo. Before visiting TEFAF, we stopped by their Aldo Rossi museum, whose indoor plazza links several graceful silos, one housing an edible Mario Merz table sprawl sited beneath Sol LeWitt’s gorgeous, floor to cupola, spiral wall drawing (recalls Siena Duomo). Holland deserves a first place award for the world’s best museum cafeterias, both in terms of design and deliciousness per dollar. I was particularly intrigued by the museum’s “live” presentation of its conservators working on 16th century paintings from Ghent’s Fine Art Museum. “Travelin’ Light,” their contemporary exhibition, contained a wonderful installation by Suchan Kinoshita, where one imagines oneself snooping around a village, while its occupants are out running short errands. We especially enjoyed Roman Signer’s video where he drops stones, trying to set off an explosion that enables him to retrieve his hat flying up to a second-story window. There was also an exhibition of classical 16th and 17th Century Flemish Paintings from various Dutch museums, which included Peter Paul Rubens’ intriguing painting, Cimon en Pero, which U.S. museums wouldn’t dare to show.
We left TEFAF totally overwhelmed by all that we had experienced, beginning with the thousands of coral & gold suffocating tulips, trapped in Plexiglas cases, greeting us upon arrival. We strolled the aisles, checking out every booth along the way. Each booth was stylized so differently that one imagined legions of designers working to create booths that would attract spectators away from vendors competing in modern furniture, antiquities, modern painting, historical painting, antique jewelry, diamonds, etc. Amidst all of this excitement were the “private banking” parties, whose guests drifted onto public spaces, giving the appearance of openness, despite the reality of exclusivity.
After settling into our Cologne hotel, we discovered the Päffgen Brauerie, a fabulously popular German beer garden, where one’s glass never goes empty! After tackling an endless German breakfast buffet, we backtracked about ten miles to Frechen, to visit Foundation Keramion, an adorable glass-enclosed, circular museum, built by Cologne architect Peter Neufert in 1971 to house Dr. Gottfried Cremer’s ceramic collection. Before heading off to Herford to visit Marta, we stopped in Cologne to check out Gisela Freudenberg’s collection of modern Japanese ceramic masterworks, featured at the East Asian Art Museum. Despite Germany’s heavy truck traffic carrying goods east, we made it to Marta, Frank Gehry’s newest museum, a magical, curvilinear brick building, whose interior is one of his most experiential to date. Mostly closed for installation, we luckily bumped into Marta director Jan Hoet and his developer pal, with whom we debated the merits of recent German architecture. Several hours later, we arrived at Anke’s home, where she surprised us with a delicious salmon dinner, before falling fast asleep.
After a noonish hike around a snow-filled dike, we head off Saturday afternoon to Hamburg’s Galerie für Landschaftskunst to meet several interesting eco-artists, including Till Krause, Brigritte Raab and Michael Stephan. An art lover’s paradise, one can just drive around Germany and stop every twenty minutes to visit a new museum. Sunday morning, we drove to Duisberg to visit Museum Küppersmühle, an old factory renovated by Herzog and De Meuron. Housing dozens of rather uninspired late 20th Century paintings, this museum’s aura grew incredibly disturbing as we passed through its galleries. Strangely, its collecting philosophy recalls Bonn’s BDR-era, super-nationalist, art museum, which I always considered a shopping mall for bored ambassadors. Even so, Rosemarie Troeckel’s sexy photo of various lovers was a great treat. The café looked promising, but the art exhibition interfered with its architecture.
Accidentally sighting a sign for Krefeld, I suddenly recalled Krefeld’s Museum Haus Lange, which is famous for mounting several early conceptual and eco-art works, such as Hans Haacke’s Rhinewater Purification Plant (1972). Originally built in 1927 by Mies Van Der Rohe, this villa and its twin, Museum Haus Ester were recently renovated. Their shared sculpture garden contains a heretofore unknown Richard Long earthwork, a nearly unnoticeable bumpy grass ring. Having traveled the world to experience Tadao Ando’s magnificent buildings, I was rather anxious to visit to his Langen Foundation. I left feeling as though Mies’s “less is more” dictum had squelched its endless possibilities. Several unusual events surrounded our visit. We passed through a “manned” railroad crossing, walked by a tower resembling an Odilon Redon Cyclops, and then wandered upon a large group of pilgrims (presumably welcoming spring) chanting under a steel dome. What a day!
Bonnefantenmuseum Maastricht www.bonnefanten.nl
TEFAF www.tefaf.com
Päffgen Brewery www.paeffgen-koelsch.de
Stiftung Keramion www.keramion.de
Museum für Ostasiatische Kunst Köln www.museenkoeln.de/mok/
Marta www.marta-herford.de
Galerie für Landschaftskunst www.gflk.de
Museum Küppersmühle für Moderne Kunst www.museum-kueppersmuehle.de
Museen Haus Lange und Haus Esters www.krefeld.de
Langen Foundation www.langenfoundation.de
Portland
Invited by the American Philosophical Association to deliver The Gist of Isness, the very same paper that I’ve been on tour presenting at art schools, I naively I thought that I’d have plenty of time to explore Portland. Despite being totally over-hung, the Portland Art Museum offers one of the nation’s broadest collections of 1990s art. Home to Clement Greenberg’s wonderful collection of mostly 1950s and 1960s painting (surprise, surprise??), it also features many examples of German ‘80s art and Los Angeles contemporary art. Just before a Thursday 8pm closing, jewelry designer/performance artist Lisa Cioli and I watched Roxy Paine’s machine splash another layer of white paint on a linen canvas. We then walked down the street to the Virginia Café, of true-dive glory, where we sampled several local beers and shared beer-battered fish and chips. That week, I fell in love with McDonald’s wi-fi service. However, they’d better install more outlets, since only one “lucky” client can connect to the McFlurry machine outlet. Friday, the leftovers from my super tasty lunch, purchased from a truck called India Chaat House parked at 804 SW 12th St., doubled as dinner. Saturday, during lunch, I caught the free street car traveling northeast to the Pearl District, where I was delighted to discover Gregg Renfrow’s dazzling polymer and pigment on cast acrylic paintings at Elizabeth Leach Gallery.
Having endured four twelve-hour days at the conference, I decided to spend my last afternoon discovering all that I had missed. After the morning session, I set out via foot along the Willamette River, ending at the Saturday Market (open Sundays, too), which is amazingly popular, considering its contents. Heading west along Everett, I stopped to photograph what I could, peering through the Classical Chinese Garden’s wall. Proceeding west on Everett through the Pearl District, I stopped briefly at Imelda’s to check out their inventive shoes. After a coffee at Whole Foods, whose sidestreet is infused with the aroma of roasting coffee beans, I proceeded north on 13th to visit PICA, which was closed, so I visited B-Gallery, instead. Heading south on Burnside, I proceeded west about ten blocks until I saw signs for the entrance to Washington Park. After walking through the International Test Rose Garden, which was clipped like twigs, I continued up the hill to the Japanese Garden, which was well worth the $8 admission fee. I then continued walking east down Salmon Street to 5th Street, where I returned via bus to my glorious Motel 6 across the river. Lisa, who had generously offered to drive me to the airport, met up with me there. En route, we stopped across the river in her ‘hood, at St. John’s Pub (northeast Portland), where we tasted soups and sampled McMenniman’s delicious Maple Stout.
Portland Art Museum www.portlandartmuseum.org
Elizabeth Leach Gallery www.elizabethleach.com
Portland Saturday Market www.portlandsaturdaymarket.com
Imelda’s Shoes & Louie’s Shoes for Men www.imeldasandlouies.com
B-Street Gallery www.thecivic.com’
Portland Institute for Contemporary Art www.pica.org
Japanese Garden www.japanesegarden.com
Los Angeles
Arriving before noon at LAX, I rode the Green Line to the Blue Line and then got off at the 7th St/Metro Center. Eager to photogrpah Thom Maynes’s new Cal Trans building, I stopped by the nearby LA Visitors Information Center to get its exact address. Bizarrely, they knew nothing of it and my request that they google it, as I had before, was met with extreme resistance. They finally found the address, but insisted I couldn’t walk there, which seemed “la-la” ridiculous, since downtown LA isn’t even four square miles. En route, I stopped at the Walt Disney Concert Hall to get tickets for LA Phil’s “Minimal Juke Box” series. Despite the hills and the heat, walking east on First Avenue is quite interesting. I was totally excited to find solar panels placed atop purple carports at the Department of Water and Power, a classic 1960s building. I was excited to finally come face to face with the Cal Trans building, but it doesn’t hold a candle to Maynes’s newer building on the campus of the University of Cincinnati. I then headed north to Union Station and hopped the Gold Line to Pasadena, where I dropped by the Armory Center to see “Bugologies,” curated by Sonoma County Museum chief curator Tricia Watts. I was especially pleased to see the direction that Tera Galanti’s silkworm project was taking and enjoyed seeing Laura Cooper and Nick Taggart’s collaborative works. Steve Kutcher’s insect-tracking project was fun, as were John Knuth’s paintings made from insect spoils, which resembled Lynn Aldrich’s greenish insect-collecting painting and Georg Herold’s caviar paintings. I then hopped a cab to Art Center to present Third Wave Feminist Painting.
Thursday, I spent the whole day at Otis College of Art, first lecturing on Latin American Participatory Art and then visiting with grad students. That evening, I presented the “Gist of Isness” at Beyond Baroque, followed by an after-party at Nancy Evans’ newly renovated Venice home. After the next morning’s leisurely breakfast with Maura Bendett, we headed to Susanne Vielmetter’s Los Angeles Projects to see Steve Roden’s fascinatingly, complex paintings. We then drove to Otis, where I thoroughly enjoyed jurying the 2006 Junior Show. That evening, I finally got to experience the LA Phil in their Frank Gehry-designed Walt Disney Concert Hall. Saturday, I feasted on a super-fantastic bouillabaise at Puran’s with dealer Jan Baum and painter Selma Moskowitz, before visiting the 6150 Wilshire Galleries and Ace. I later headed onto a super delicious dinner in Glassell Park, which included artist-friends who had shown at LA gallery.
After hearing Selma Moskowitz sing the praises of chicken feet over lunch the day before, Kahty Chenoweth and I ended our dim sum brunch at the Empress Pavilion with some. Not being huge fans of skin, we were a bit stuck. I then dropped by MOCA, whose Karl Haendel exhibition seemed primed for Retro-PoMo. Fortunately, however, Lucy McKenzie and Anselm Reyle’s contributions to “Painting in Tongues” seemed refreshing and “After Cezanne,” MOCA’s current collection exhibition proved particularly exciting, despite its ridiculous title. Before jumping on the plane for Milwaukee, I caught four Hammer projects, yet the simplicity of Jim Isermann’s Greek-inspired construction fence disguised in graceful foliage struck me most.
Ben Maltz Gallery www.otis.edu
Los Angeles Philharmonic www.laphil.org
The Museum of Contemporary Art www.moca.org
Hammer Museum www.hammer.ucla.edu
Milwaukee/Chicago
I would move to Milwaukee in a heartbeat. En route from Pewaukee to the Milwaukee Art Museum downtown, my enquiry into three dome-like structures in the distance inspired a stop. Not geodesic like Omaha’s Desert Dome (2002), St. Louis’ Climatron (1960) or the Des Moines Botanical Center (1979), the Mitchell Park Domes remain the world’s only “conoidal” conservatory. Their construction began in 1959, only five years after Buckminster Fuller was awarded the patent for the “geodesic” dome. Milwaukee architect Donald Grieb designed the original Show Dome (1964), Tropical Dome (1966) and Arid Dome (1967). We then head to the Milwaukee Museum of Art, which featured scores of Bruce Nauman’s “experiential” light works. The didactic panels for “Elusive Signs”’ revealed his 1965 goal to invite viewers to perform, rather than just watch the artist perform.
The next morning I took the train to Chicago to do studio critiques with SAIC’s Fiber and Material Arts Department’s graduate students, whose productivity and invention totally impressed me. That evening, I watched the kooky, amusing film Žižek about the celebrity Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek, on view at the Gene Siskel Film Center. My next day’s delicious brunch at Orange with youth-culture informant Debra Parr, included a ginger-infused, fresh-pressed pear juice! During Columbia College’s lunch hour, I presented “The Gist of Isness” and met individually with their very curious undergrads afterwards. I caught up with current SAIC professor Terry Myers en route to a Hancock Building affair, where Christie’s featured the Refco Collection, which is so large that it requires three separate auctions.
The next morning, I took the train/bus combo to the University of Chicago to check out Yutaka Sone’s faux-snow, evergreen-maze show. Its most intriguing object was an incredibly detailed marble ski-lift, yet I also loved how Sone’s snow-flake focus echoed the gallery’s octagonal corners, though I doubt this was intentional, since he’s been producing this work for a while. I also appreciated seeing 20 snowflake drawings floating around the ceiling/walls, forcing the viewer to look around, as well as forward, since the gallery was quite stuffed. Returning to town, I ventured over to the MCA, where Jim Isermann’s white, vacuum-formed op-wall installation greeted me upon arrival. I was actually blown away by “Figures in the Field,” which initially seemed like yet another ridiculously-titled MCA collection show (remember “People See Paintings” or “Picturing the Artist”?), until I realized how considered each object’s placement was. Sarah Sze’s Proportioned to the Groove (2005), exhibited upstairs, is the most exciting work that I’ve ever seen in any museum, and it works well adjacent the pink/yellow Flavin. Included in “Figures in the Field,” Tony Tassett’s intriguing snow man with faux-coal eyes forecast my next stop. Tony drove me west on Chicago Avenue to view his life-size handmade snowdrift, sited in a window in the Goldblatt Brothers Building at the corner of Ashland Avenue. Since a London-based friend just sent me her 13-year old daughter’s Spring 2006 fashion forecast for “white,” I’m beginning to sense that Sone’s Forecast: Snow exhibition, Tasset’s snowman + snow drift, and Isermann’s white wall are all part of a larger picture. I ended my day with a dinner at the jam-packed Irazu, a Costa Rican restaurant on Milwaukee in Bucktown, near the Blue Line’s Western stop.
Mitchell Park “Domes” www.countyparks.com/horticulture
Milwaukee Art Museum www.mam.org
Gene Siskel Film Center www.siskelfilmcenter.org
Christie’s Chicago www.christies.com
Renaissance Society www.renaissancesociety.org
Museum of Contemporary Art www.mcachicago.org
