All Art Friday

All Art Friday

Exhibitions Here and There

✭ The extraordinary drapery bas-reliefs of Karen LaMonte are on view until December 4 at Heller Gallery in New York City. All of the pieces in "Drapery Abstractions" are in cast glass and porcelain and mark LaMonte's movement into abstraction and away from figurative work. Washingtonians are familiar with LaMonte's magnificent Reclining Dress Impression with Drapery (see video below), now in the collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum/Renwick Gallery. Go here to see many more of LaMonte's glass and ceramic sculptures, bas-reliefs, and drawings.

Karen LaMonte Artist Talk, February 26, 2010 from Smithsonian American Art Museum on Vimeo.

Karen LaMonte on FaceBook

✭ Also in New York City, at Eykyn MacLean, is "In Giacometti's Studio: An Intimate Portrait". The  exhibition, open until December 18, presents sculptures, paintings, drawings, and photographs drawn primarily from the collections of Giocometti's heirs; some work has never before been shown. A list of linked reviews on the show is here.

✭ The Art Institute of Chicago has mounted "Contemporary Fiber Art: A Selection from the Permanent Collection" to inaugurate the reopening of the institute's Elizabeth F. Cheney and Agnes Allerton Textile Galleries. The show, on view through February 7, 2011, examines the development of fiber art from the 1950s to today through 61 works by 52 artists, including Magdalena Abakanowicz (see image below), Petter Collingwood, Jolanta Owidzka, Lenore Tawney, and Claire Zeisler.

Magdalena Abakanowicz, Brun Rouge, 1970/73

Sisal, Hemp, and Horsehair, Slit Tapestry Weave

With Raised Coils of Supplementary Wefts and

Attached Trips of Weft-Faced Plain Weave and Lengths of Horsehair

55-1/2 x 42-1/4 inches

Art Institute of Chicago

Gift of Dr. Anne Baruch in Memory of George Overton

Sigrid Wortmann Weltge, "Lenore Tawney: Spiritual Revolutionary", American Craft Magazine, February/March 2008

✭ In Washington, D.C., the National Portrait Gallery is presenting "Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture", described as "the first major museum exhibition showing how questions of gender and sexual identity have shaped the creation of modern portraiture". On view until February 13, 2011, the exhibition includes paintings, sculpture, watercolors, prints, and photographs, including Thomas Eakins' Salutat, Romaine Brooks' 1923 self-portrait, Robert Rauschenberg's Canto XIV, David Hockney's We Two Boys Together Clinging,  Annie Leibovitz's Ellen DeGeneres in Kauai, Hawaii, and Jasper Johns' Souvenir. An interactive exhibition Website is here and worth your time, whether you go before and after seeing the show. A catalogue has been published in conjunction with the show and is available through Amazon.

✭ The Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, is presenting "Andre Kertesz: On Reading" through February 13, 2011. On exhibit are 100 photographs of people reading; the images were made in Hungary, France, Asia, and the United States throughout Kertesz's career.

Andre Kertesz Biography

Andre Kertesz Images at Staley-Wise Gallery

Andre Kertesz, PBS' American Masters Program (YouTube Video, Pt 1, Pt 2, Pt 3, Pt 4; also see Masters of Photography: Andre Kertesz)

Andre Kertesz National Gallery of Art Exhibition (20 Images)

Sara Greenough, Robert Gurbo, and Sarah Kennel, Andre Kertesz (Princeton University Press, 2005)

Carnegie Museum of Art on FaceBook

In the video below, from PBS, CMA's photography curator Linda Benedict-Jones speaks about the historical importance of the photographs in the exhibition.

Art Books

Below are five art photography books of note:

✦ The Island of Rota (2010), commissioned by the Library Council of the Museum of Modern Art in an edition of 135 copies, with text from Oliver Sacks' The Island of the Colorblind (Vintage, 1998) and cliche-verre photographs of ferns and cycads by photographer Abelardo Morell; overall design by Ted Muehling.

✦ Excessive Exposure (Gregory R. Miller & Co., 2010), comprising 200 head-shots (front and back) by photographer Lyle Ashton Harris, an assistant professor of art and art education at New York University's Steinhardt School. The book's foreword is by Henry Louis Gates Jr.; included is an artist interview with Chuck Close.

Among Harris' subjects are Cindy Sherman, Kara Walker, Tony Kushner, and Yoko Ono.

✦ You Should Have Heard Just What I Seen (Ecstatic Peace Library/DAP, 2010), music photography from the archives of James Hamilton; edited by Thurston Moore. See the review "The Music Photography of James Hamilton Edited by Thurston Moore" at ArtDaily, July 6, 2010.

✦ Views from the Reservation (Center Books on American Places, 2010), by photographer and Marlboro College professor John Willis, documenting Willis' visits to Pine Ridge Indian Reservation (Lakota People) in South Dakota in 122 color and duotones plates. Images from the book may be seen here; additional images are here. A CD, Heartbeat of the Rez, comprising traditional songs, accompanies the book.

Columbia College Chicago, Center for American Places, Centerbooks
Centerbooks on Twitter

✦ Destroy This Memory (Aperture, 2010), by Richard Misrach, comprising a series of images, including 70 four-color photos, taken between October and December 2005, following Hurricane Katrina. The images document graffiti on wrecked buildings, vehicles, and trees, among other things, as well as "purposeful" marks left by rescue personnel. The artist's royalties from sales of the book are donated to the Make It Right Foundation, which is rebuilding New Orleans' Lower Ninth Ward.

Destroy This Memory on FaceBook
Tyler Green, "Richard Misrach's 'Destroy This Memory'", Modern Art Notes, September 8, 2010, and "Richard Misrach's Post-Katrina Narrative", Modern Art Notes, September 8, 2010
"Destroy This Memory: Richard Misrach on Hurricane Katrina", Time Photos
"After Katrina, Richard Misrach Captured Writing on the Wall", PBS NewsHour, August 25, 2010