How does one piece of art alter how you look at all the rest? Listen and find out!
We're coming towards the end of the series, so if you've got ideas for work we should cover, or even if you' like to do an interview, lemme know - [email protected]
0 Comments
What does it mean when you can't separate a painting from another painter's paintings? That happens here!
These two pieces allow me to say something that I often have trouble with. The first piece,Untitled by John McCracken, a simple lacquered wood Blue Cube, says nothing. It means nothing, because it gives you nothing. Perhaps it is another statement of space being given to an object automatically making it art. I dunno, because there's nothign there for me to latch on to which would allow me to form an opinion one way or the other.
Glass Cube, creat by Larry Bell, is nearly the opposite. It is smoked glass, but moreso, it is a cube that contains something, something hazy, amorphous. As you reposition yourself, the piece changes, the haze reincorporates. It gives a simple change and that makes the work ultimately considerable, but it does somethign else - it reflects. We are able to take in the rest of the gallery within reflection, and that alone makes it more impressive. I wondered if I had managed to wander over to the Cantor collection, or some other museum which held ancient works, dig up after centuries underground. I had not, it seems, and instead this statue has that feeling, only made of bronze and stainless steel.
Standing across from deKooning's Woman, it is a female body without a head or feet, rough, pocked. It is as if they had been worn away by time, wind, rain, sand. Whereas deKooning's woman appears to have been attacked, or at best defaced, this seems to have organically worn away. It is a lovely piece, but I had trouble fitting it in with its surroundings. There is the Elsworth Kelly on one side, Motherwell guards the other, and though I understand in time that it belongs here, it doesn't FEEL like it belongs there, deKooning's Woman staring across at her. It actually feels more like the standing figure on the complete other side, or perhaps the Bay Area Figurativists, perhaps even Neri, though I can see how that would muddy the waters. This piece is lovely, strange, and it makes me feel as if there is an idea within it. The idea that this is meant to stand as long as those works of Pharoahs and Emperors, that the art of th emid-20th Century is as sturdy in import as the works of Ozymanias, and we mighty should look upon them and tremble. The only thing I can say about this work is that it is what it is, and the methodology seems to support the antithesis of the title. This is a picture of cool greys,
I have spoken about how I dislike the Neri statue works, for the most part, but these works, which seem to be studies for these works. These, though, are magnificent.
The fact is it is the three dimensionality that appears to be the downfalls of the statuary. These, forms that are instantly recogniseable as the work of Neri, are subsumed into the brush stroke, though at the same time, they are still there, still real, still understandable. The fact that it is no longer bound to a physical space, that imagery can expand beyond the form. This may mean that Neri may work in an installation form, which would rule! Robert Arneson is this podcast/blog's Patron Saint, and here there is a look at this wonderful piece!
Hypnotic. I could stare at this for hours. And with my many visits, I may have already.
|
Your HostChristopher J Garcia - Curator, Fan Writer, Podcaster, and a guy who just loves art. Archives
February 2019
|