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Closing soon: Virgil Ortiz’s Revolt: Runners + Gliders at History Colorado (on until July 28/24) is definitely worth see...
07/10/2024

Closing soon: Virgil Ortiz’s Revolt: Runners + Gliders at History Colorado (on until July 28/24) is definitely worth seeing if you’re in Denver. I was fascinated!

The year is 2180. Puebloans are revolting against the ruthless Castilians. Time-traveling warriors known as the Recon Watchmen scour the desert in full combat gear. Their mission: Safeguard the past, present & future of the Puebloan people & ensure their survival. They must save Puebloan traditions. Clay, culture & language must be protected from extinction in order to preserve the Puebloan way of life.

The Gliders are the Recon Watchmen’s foremost reconnaissance team. Future iterations of the legendary Runners of the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 - when Pueblo people rose up & drove out Spanish colonizers - the Gliders often travel back in time 500 years. They relay vital messages to the Puebloan people as they resist Spanish subjugation.

So… Video game? Art exhibition? Slipstream portal???

Virgil Ortiz invites us to learn about the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 by imagining a future revolt. By merging stories of the future with his ancestral traditions, he brings new perspectives to history & combats the narrative that indigenous people exist only in the past.

📷 1, 4, 8 On walls, Catua & Omtua, Runners 1680 & Gliders 2180
📷 7 Enter the Portal with the Glider
📷 10 Recon Watchmen
📷 2 Exhibition entry

On clay, Ortiz says: More than a material, clay is spiritual. Ancestral Puebloan ceramics are creation & cosmology, stories & songs. Within these creations are the artists who made them. The Runners + Gliders must protect clay, so the art & artists can live on.

📷 3 Ancestral Puebloan bowl, 1150-1300
📷 5 Detail, Cochiti jar, date & artist unknown
📷 6 Cochiti olla, 1890-1930, artist unknown
📷 9 Left to right: Ancestral Puebloan corrugated pot, 1150-1300; Cochiti jar, date & artist unknown; wildflower pot, 2023, Virgil Ortiz

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Before it closes (on Sun July 7/24), here’s a look at a few pieces in The Met’s Hidden Faces: Covered Portraits of the R...
07/02/2024

Before it closes (on Sun July 7/24), here’s a look at a few pieces in The Met’s Hidden Faces: Covered Portraits of the Renaissance exhibition, which presents portraits hidden beneath or behind other images or protective covers: hinged diptychs, double-sided panels, paintings with sliding covers, & boxes & lockets.

📷 1-3 Anna Rasper or Anna Dornle(?), Cover with a siren; 1525, Meister der Dosenköpfe (Germany) () - a relief portrait & cover; represents a token of the love affair between Elector Friedrich the Wise of Saxony & his mistress Anna Rasper (or Dornle); the creature on the cover resembles a siren, symbolizing sensual pleasure (although I confess, I find it looks a bit sinister - not quite how I’d expect to see one’s love depicted! 🤣)

📷 4-5 Private devotional shrine, c. 1490, German (Swabia) (1991.10) - depicts saints on the exterior & interior wings, revealing the female donor & her husband next to Saint Catherine in the interior

📷 6-7 Portrait medal with innocence & a unicorn in a landscape (reverse) & Cecelia Gonzaga, daughter of Gianfrancesco Gonzaga of Mantua, shortly after she became a nun (obverse), 1447, Pisanello (Antonio Pisano, Italy) (1975.1.1307) - the first portrait medal to portray a woman, it celebrates her chastity, symbolized by the crescent moon (symbol of the goddess Diana), & her piety, with a female figure whose purity let her tame a unicorn, symbolizing Christ

📷 8-9 Francesco d’Este (recto) & coat of arms (verso), c. 1460, Rogier van der Weyden & Workshop (Netherlands, c. 1399-1464) (32.100.43) - portrait of the illegitimate but favored son of the Duke of Ferrara, Leonello d’Este, with hammer & ring, representing jousting prizes or symbols of power?, & the Este coat of arms

📷 10 Robert Lehman wing

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The Bough Breaks, Matthew Krishanu (b. 1980, UK, ) is on until June 23/24 at the Camden Art Centre in London. Krishanu’s...
05/24/2024

The Bough Breaks, Matthew Krishanu (b. 1980, UK, ) is on until June 23/24 at the Camden Art Centre in London. Krishanu’s work uses his own biography & memories, growing up between India, Bangladesh & England, as a way to explore themes of childhood, relationships & questions about religion & identity. My photos don’t convey the size of the works - some are quite large (the Banyan tree series - perhaps my favourites in the exhibition - & the 2 Field pieces, while others are relatively small.

(The Camden Art Centre is lovely, by the way - make sure to stop into the delightful café, where you can enjoy an excellent lunch or snack in the garden.)

📷 1 Banyan (Girl), 2024

📷 2 Girl and Sea, 2024

📷 3 Banyan (Boy), 2023

📷 4 Pool (Boy Swimming), 2024

📷 5 Church Tower and Field, 2024

📷 6 Red Church, Green Field, 2024

📷 7 Banyan (Two Boys), 2024

📷 8 Two Boys on a Log, 2019

📷 9 Church and Palm Trees, 2024

📷 10 Four Nuns, 2020

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Happy International Museum Day!! I’m not sure how it got to be May already… The Met’s current Façade Commission is only ...
05/18/2024

Happy International Museum Day!! I’m not sure how it got to be May already… The Met’s current Façade Commission is only on for another 10 days (on until May 28/24).

It’s interesting - a series of abstract sculptures by Nairy Baghramian (German, b. 1971, Iran) entitled Scratching the Back: Drift. These sculptures represent the back side of works of art, washed up like drift into the niches, & present a metaphor of the museum as filter of historical fragments deemed representative or exemplary. The title alludes to the idiom “scratching the surface,” suggesting the need to move beyond superficially constructed cultural narratives.

Scratching the Back: Drift, 2023
📷 1-2 Tortillon rose

📷 3-4 Tortillon orange

📷 5-6 sans Tortillon

📷 7-8 Tortillon jaune

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The Met’s Weaving Abstraction in Ancient and Modern Art (on through June 16/24) juxtaposes textiles of the ancient Andes...
05/14/2024

The Met’s Weaving Abstraction in Ancient and Modern Art (on through June 16/24) juxtaposes textiles of the ancient Andes & the work of 4 modern artists, offering new insights into the emergence of abstract imagery. Textiles present an integral relationship between structure & design due to the grid formed by the vertical & horizontal elements of the loom.

The 2 works I’ve shown here were presented near each other but otherwise not connected in the exhibition materials. I couldn’t help but think of them together - I guess the obvious similar shape & tie technique drew me in.

📷 1 Khipu, Inca artist (Peru, Bolivia, Argentina or Chile), 15th-16th cent. () - various ancient Andean cultures including the Inca used these sets of coloured, twisted & knitted cords to convey information & stories that could be read by a khipukamayuq (khipu specialist); across the top is the primary cord, from which are suspended subsidiary cords, which can in turn have their own subsidiary cords

📷 2 The Principal Wife, Sheila Hicks (b. 1934, US), c. 1965 () - Hicks created “open compositions” - not woven but tied, echoing a pre-contact tie- or resist-dying technique still in use today, where threads are wrapped to prevent them from absorbing dye; Hicks inverts this by leaving the unwrapped parts undyed

According to information about another of Hick’s pieces from the same series (at another museum), the title refers to the varied roles of women, & the work explores the ways in which many parts become one, & yet can split & recombine into new—& still whole—units

I wish we had more information on the stories told by these 2 pieces…

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When I think of “sketching,” I think of pen or pencil & paper. But for a sculptor, it makes sense that “sketches” of pos...
03/04/2024

When I think of “sketching,” I think of pen or pencil & paper. But for a sculptor, it makes sense that “sketches” of possible works might be done in clay. An exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago focuses on exactly that: Canova Sketching in Clay is on until Mar 18/24.

Antonio Canova (1757-1822, Italy) made these clay pieces quickly, without spending time on the beautiful finishing that characterizes his marble works. In fact, the exhibition shows a wider range of his creative process, with the rough clay sketches, plaster casts, finished marbles & engraved prints. Fascinating! I look forward to comparing these materials with his finished sculptures that are on view elsewhere.

📷 1 Penitent Magdalene, terracotta, 1791 ()

📷 2 Penitent Magdalene, marble & gilded bronze, c. 1794-6 ()

📷 3 Head of the Penitent Magdalene, plaster with metal pointing marks, c. 1794-1809 () - made in Canova’s studio, as an intermediate step; the nails fixed coordinates for measuring when the composition was transferred to marble (“pointing”)

📷 4 Allegory of Peace, terracotta, c. 1811 ()

📷 5 Allegory of Peace, plaster with metal pointing marks, c. 1811-14 ()

📷 6 The Three Graces, terracotta, 1812 ()

📷 7 The Three Graces, Back View, print, Domenico Marchetti (c. 1780 - after 1844), 1817 - Canova personally oversaw the production of prints of his statues - engravings from multiple angles (, 2021.50)

📷 8 Head of Medusa, terracotta, c. 1797-1800 ()

📷 9 Head of Medusa, plaster, c. 1801 (Art Institute of Chicago, 2002.606)

📷 10 Cupid and Psyche, terracotta, 1786-7 ()

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Playing with reflections & colour from an early snow & ice in Nov 2023 at Lake Kashagawigamog, in Haliburton, Ontario. A...
02/28/2024

Playing with reflections & colour from an early snow & ice in Nov 2023 at Lake Kashagawigamog, in Haliburton, Ontario.

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I will confess I hadn’t really seen examples of Picasso’s classicizing works before - coincidentally, just before seeing...
02/16/2024

I will confess I hadn’t really seen examples of Picasso’s classicizing works before - coincidentally, just before seeing MoMA’s Picasso in Fontainebleau exhibition (closing Feb 17/24), I noticed these 2 mini paintings at The Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia. The Barnes is wonderful but it’s a bit like a big art history exam - no labels (although label info is available online) - to be honest, I’m not sure I recognized these as Picasso initially (failing grade for me 🤪)! I was happy to learn more about this style of Picasso’s work in the MoMA exhibition a few weeks later!

📷 1 Three Figures, c. 1921 (BF251)

📷 2 Two Figures, c. 1921 (BF283)

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Nov 2013 and the Imperial City (the Citadel) in Hué, Vietnam. I was looking for dragons to celebrate Lunar New Year & ...
02/15/2024

Nov 2013 and the Imperial City (the Citadel) in Hué, Vietnam. I was looking for dragons to celebrate Lunar New Year & the Year of the Dragon & remembered these.

Hué was the capital of Vietnam during the Nguyen dynasty (1802-1945). Emperor Gia Long (r. 1802-20) established the Citadel complex in 1805. It’s a huge fortress surrounded by a moat enclosing, among other things, the Imperial City, which in turn encloses the Forbidden Purple City (modeled after Beijing’s Forbidden City). It was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1993.

Dien Thai Hoa (the Throne Palace or Palace of the Supreme Harmony) housed the throne room of the Nguyen emperors & is the most impressive of Hué’s palace. On ceremonial occasions, the emperor would wear a crown with 9 dragons, a gold robe & a jade belt.

I visited in 2013, so it may look a bit different now: restoration work on the complex is currently underway & Dien Thai Hoa (& another palace, Dien Kiem Trung) have just reopened to the public during the Tet holidays (Lunar New Year).

📷 1, 5 Dragons on roof ridge of Dien Thai Hoa - 2 dragons paying homage to the moon

📷 2, 9 Detail, Golden dragon in courtyard of Dien Thai Hoa

📷 3 Dien Thai Hoa

📷 4 Roof details: yellow enameled tiles

📷 6, 7 Crown Prince grand audience gown, modeled after the original gown of emperor D**g Khanh (r. 1885-9), made of thick royal silk satin, embroidered with 5-clawed dragons

📷 8 View from steps of Dien Thai Hoa to courtyard

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(Those who used to work with me may remember 📷 1 from The Office Wall, a gallery-style photo project on my office wall in 2014. I may post some more from time to time from that project, as well as The Apartment Wall - a glimpse at what’s . 🤪)

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