All Art Friday
All Art Friday Spotlights
✦ For a "very personal" talk about Richard Diebenkorn (1922-1993), a painter known for his "sensitivity to light and color of a particular place", take an hour off during the holidays and enjoy this excellent podcast by Diebenkorn's daughter, Gretchen Diebenkorn Grant.
While speaking about her father's drawings and other artworks, as well as gifts such as hand-made cards for family members, Diebenkorn Grant remarks on Diebenkorn's "fantastic" sense of humor, delight in useful objects, and comfort "going in and out of fantasy." She also addresses how he taught her to see, especially variation in color. Her comments on her father's "aggressive, active involvement" with a work, how "physically involved [Diekbenkorn was] with the paint and canvas", and how he "used the strength of his hands to express his ideas" are particularly interesting. Also noteworthy are three of 10 notes on beginning a painting: "Do search but in order to find other than what is searched for." "Mistakes can't be erased but they move you forward from your present position." "Tolerate chaos." A "very opinionated" man who "valued his own autonomy" and resisted all labels, Diebenkorn, says his daughter, "was interested in evidence of changes a work went through as it evolved". He basically worked 365 days a year, she notes. "He was always working because he was always looking and deeply noticing." His work, she adds, is "a series of intimate spaces the viewer is allowed to enter."
The podcast was produced in conjunction with the exhibition "Richard Diebenkorn: The Ocean Park Series" at the Museum of Modern Art in Fort Worth, Texas. The exhibition remains on view until January 15.
✦ In late October I featured in an All Art Friday post a video of Gerhard Richter that showed the artist using giant squeegees while painting. The Tate Modern posted on its blog this fascinating conversation with painting conservator Rachel Barker about how Richter makes his artwork. Images of a trio of marvelous work are shown. (My thanks to Tyler Green of Modern Art Notes for his link to the Tate blog.)
✦ Do take some time in the virtual Reading Room at Los Angeles County Museum of Art, which offers a remarkable collection of art-related materials, such as exhibition catalogues, monographs, and other publications, on European art, German Expressionism, and, most recently, the wonderful Pacific Standard Time initiative.
✭ The Los Angeles County Museum of Art is presenting through January 22, 2012, "Glenn Ligon: America", a retrospective mid-career exhibition of approximately 100 paintings, prints, photography, drawings, and sculptural installations, including previously unknown early material and the reconstruction of such works as the "Door" paintings, the coal dust "Stranger" canvases, and the "Coloring" series. A catalogue accompanies the exhibition, which appeared earlier this year at the Whitney in New York City.
In conjunction with the show, Ligon (b. 1960) took time to talk about his work (see video) for which he draws on American history, literature, and society. I found particularly interesting his comments on Robert Mapplethorpe and about Ligon's own "Coloring" series, a reinterpretation of images of civil rights leaders in coloring books from the 1960s and 1970s.
LACMA's Limited-Edition Ligon Print
Ligon Work at Walker Art Center and Museum of Modern Art
Ligon in LACMA's Collections (Ligon's Rugenfigur (2009), which is part of the "America" works, recently was acquired by LACMA.)
LACMA on FaceBook, Twitter, Flickr, and YouTube
LACMA Blog Unframed
Of related interest: Jason Moran, "Glenn Ligon", Interview; "Glenn Ligon Reframes History in the Art of 'America'", NPR, May 8, 2011; and Ben Davis, "Glenn Ligon and Post-Civil Rights America", ArtInfo, April 21, 2011
✭ In New York City, take some time for the Museum of Modern Art exhibition of Diego Rivera's "Murals for the Museum of Modern Art", on view through May 14, 2012. The last Rivera retrospective at the museum was 80 years ago; the current show brings together five "portable" murals Rivera created for the 1931 exhibition. Among the murals presented are The Uprising, Electric Power, Pneumatic Drill, Frozen Assets, and Indian Warrior. Here's a brief video introduction to the exhibition:
In addition to the murals, the exhibition includes full-scale drawings, working drawings, archival materials related to the commission and production of the murals, and Rivera's design for Rockefeller Center's mural, Man at the Crossroads (listen to the audio recordings here and here). The MoMA, the sole venue for the exhibition, has issued a catalogue, Diego Rivera: Murals for the Museum of Modern Art by Leah Dickerman and Anna Indych-Lopez (2011) that includes 128 illustrations.
Diego Rivera, Agrarian Leader Zapata, 1931
Fresco, 7' 9-3/4" x 6' 2"
The Museum of Modern Art/Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Fund
If you can't get to the Big Apple, don't miss the audio recordings available on the exhibition site. Go here and browse the playlist to the right.
ArtInfo Slideshow of Images of 11 Murals
Diego Rivera Mural Project, City College of San Francisco
Video of Work in Diego Rivera Museum in Mexico City
✭ Artworks by poet Elizabeth Bishop have been much in the news this year, and those of you who might have missed the earlier exhibitions of her work in celebration of the centennial of her birth, take heart. New York City's Tibor de Nagy Gallery is running through January 21 a show of her watercolors and gouaches, in addition to several assemblages and constructions reminiscent of Joseph Cornell. Titled "Elizabeth Bishop: Objects & Apparitions", the show also features paintings by Gregorio Valdes and John Ferren, and an early Calder print. Two family portraits and an inherited landscape are included. A 48-page book with contributions from writers Dan Chiasson, Joelle Biele, editor of Elizabeth Bishop and The New Yorker, and Lloyd Schwartz accompanies the exhibition.
Elizabeth Bishop, Red Flowers on Black, Undated
Gouache and Graphite on Paper
9-3/4" x 6"
Selection of Exhibition Images (Click on the page for the image to appear.)
Gallery Press Release (pdf)
The Alice Methfessel Collection of Paintings and Assemblages by Elizabeth Bishop (Go here to learn about some of the artworks in the de Nagy exhibition.)
The Alice Methfessel Collection of Paintings and Assemblages by Elizabeth Bishop (Go here to learn about some of the artworks in the de Nagy exhibition.)
Elizabeth Bishop at Vassar College (Vassar is the repository for Bishop's papers.)
Also of interest: "From Pens to Brushes", Critical Analyical Essay by Davis Nguyen
Also of interest: "From Pens to Brushes", Critical Analyical Essay by Davis Nguyen
✭ The Indianapolis Museum of Art has mounted "Universe Is Flux: The Art of Tawara Yusaku". On view through April 1, this is the first large-scale show of the contemporary Japanese painter's gorgeous and expressive work, which is primarily in ink on paper. This video is an introduction to the artist (1932-2004) and the exhibition, which features 77 works. A catalogue accompanies the show.
Go here to see a collection of Yasaku images dating from the early 1990s to 2002.
IMA on FaceBook, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, and ArtBabble
IMA Blog
Notable Exhibitions Abroad
✭ The Whitworth Art Gallery of the University of Manchester, United Kingdom, is showing until January 15 "Dark Matters: Shadow_Technology_Art". The exhibition, which includes a commissioned installation, The Veil, by Korea's Ja-Young Ku and work by nine other artists, examines the effects of scientific, digital, and mechanical invention on visual culture.
Don't miss the Dark Matters Website for a selection of images and information about the artists and their work (additional links are provided on each artist's page): Daniel Rozin, Pascal Grandmaison, Barnaby Hosking, Brass Art (a group of artists), Hiraki Sawa, R. Luke DuBois, Idris Khan, Elin O'Hara Slavick, Pavel Buchler, and Ja-Young Ku. Here's a very brief video:
Dark Matters Blog
✭ The first French retrospective for fascinating Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama, comprising 150 works, including paintings and soft sculptures, from 1949 to 2011, continues at Centre Pompidou through January 9. This video from Vernissage TV is a walk-through of the show:
Website for Yayoi Kusama
Kusama: Princess of Polka Dots (Documentary Work-in-Progress)
Yayoi Kusama in the MoMA Collection
Yayoi Kusama at Gagosian Gallery
Of related interest: Deborah Barlow, "Brilliant Mind Meets Freakish Individuality", Slow Muse, June 10, 2009
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3 comments:
Hello Maureen, I don't know how long it takes you to put together one of your All Art Fridays-- but wow! they are always filled with so much joy and wonder and so many treasures -- I really appreciate the effort you put into inspiring all of us through these columns.
Louise, typically an hour or less. I vet all the links and scan the info before listing it. If I don't learn something from it, I don't list it. Sometimes, I do get involved in research on a particular artist I become interested in; then I spend a bit more time. I have a way of putting these editions together relatively easily. Plus I truly enjoy doing them; so, it's not really labor-intensive for me.
Cj and i went to the PAM yesterday and then to the art supply store a few blocks away.
Wonderful post. i have been pinning them on my pinterest account.
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