Friday, November 1, 2013

All Art Friday

All Art Friday

All Art Friday Spotlights

Patricia Galagan's beautiful photographic series The Green Fuse shows us how a forest recovers after a devastating fire. The images speak eloquently to fragility and loss as well as resilience. Also see Galagan's wonderful Southwest and Pacific Northwest landscapes.

✦ Linda Liu Behar's striking fiber art has its origins in the photographs Behar takes on site; she prints her images on cotton broadcloth that she then hand-embroiders. The work is labor intensive, taking up to six weeks to produce a 4x6-inch piece comprising many hundreds upon hundreds of stitches (her process is described here). She draws much of her inspiration from nature—salt marshes, autumn's fruit and trees, rocks, and gardens—and her travels. Behar is represented by Mobilia Gallery, Cambridge, Massachusetts. 

✦ I came across the work of Samantha Holmes via Harvard Magazine. Her award-winning art, which is exhibited internationally, is evocative (see The Absence Project of site-specific mosaics) and beautifully conceived (see, for example, Novena).

Craig Lambert, "Masterful Mosaics", Harvard Magazine, January-February 2013

✦ Named one of Wisconsin's "Seven Man-Made Wonders", the outdoor Wisconsin Concrete Park, in Phillips, Wisconsin, boasts 237 embellished concrete sculptures and  tableaux, all created by folk artist Fred Smith (1886-1976). Formerly a logger, Smith began making the pieces when he was in his mid-sixties, using primarily wire-wrapped wooden armatures that he covered in hand-mixed concrete and decorated with paint or found objects, including auto reflectors and glass of all kinds and colors. Smith spent some 14 years realizing his vision (read the interesting site history). Represented among Smith's pieces are animals, such as the Budweiser Clydesdale Team, and a diverse array of folkloric and historical figures, including Paul Bunyan, Kit Carson, Sacajawea, and Sun Yat-sen (see site plan and images). The park, purchased by Kohler Foundation in 1976, is open year-round.

✦ I'm forever grateful to my friend Hannah Stephenson ("The Storialist") for all the art finds she shares. One recent standout is Irish painter Tom Climent, whose masterful, intimate paintings reveal an exquisite handling of space and an extraordinarily refined color sense. I could look at his work all day and never tire of it.

✦ Congratulations to artist Rebecca Kamen, one of the "Nifty Fifty" who will be participating in the 2013-2014 STEAM series for high school students; the series is organized by the USA Science and Engineering Festival, scheduled for April 2014 in Washington, D.C. Rebecca is a wonderful presenter with an infectious enthusiasm for art and science. (Read "Visualizing the Unseen", a profile from RISD News.) Rebecca's Divining Nature: An Elemental Garden (see my post) will be showcased in Harvard University's new 21st Century chemistry course.

✦ Earlier this year, Rice University Art Gallery exhibited Soo Sunny Park's installation Unwoven Light. In the Wally Films documentary below, Park talks about the conception and fabrication of her shimmering work.

  Soo Sunny Park: Unwoven Light from Walley Films on Vimeo.

Unwoven Light Images (Also see images at Park's Website.)

Exhibitions Here and There

✭ Work by painters Leland Bell (1922-1991), Paul Georges (b. 1928), Paul Resika, Neil Welliver (1929-2005), Albert Kresch (b. 1922), Stanley Lewis (b. 1941), and Peter Heinemann (b. 1931) is on view in "See It Loud: Seven Post-War American Painters", continuing through January 26, 2014, at National Academy Museum, New York City. Eighty works from the Center for Figurative Painting are in the show.


National Academy Museum on FaceBook and Twitter

✭ "Fit to Print" presents contemporary American graphics from the collection of the Daum Museum of Contemporary Art, Sedalia, Missouri. The exhibition may be seen through December 17.

Daum Museum on FaceBook
                         
✭ The first American solo exhibition of work by French artist Camille Henrot opened October 11 at New Orleans Museum of Art, where it continues through February 23, 2014. "Camille Henrot: Cities of Ys" comprises Henrot's video installation about the history and culture of southern Louisiana. Henrot is the recipient of the Silver Lion award of the 55th Venice Biennale for her video Grosse fatigue (2013).

Image Preview

Camille Henrot's Million Dollars Point on Vimeo

NOMA on FaceBook and Twitter

✭ A retrospective of the figurative sculpture of Hanneke Beaumont continues at The Baker Museum, on the Artis-Naples campus, Naples, Florida, through February 16, 2014. The exhibition, "Connected and Disconnected", presents more than 20 of Beaumont's sculptures in bronze, terra cotta, and cast iron, and a selection of large drawings. The show is the first major American museum survey of the artist. I wish it were coming to the D.C. area! (It appeared earlier this year at Frederick Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park, Grand Rapids, Michigan. An introductory visit with the curator may be viewed in the press section of Beaumont's Website and on YouTube.)

Selection of Images of Beaumont Sculptures and Drawings 

The museum is presenting through January 12, 2014, the exquisite, not-to-be-missed work of Belgian paper artist and sculptor Isabelle de Borchgrave. "Papiers la Mode" showcases more than 50 of de Borchgrave's paper costumes, kimonos, caftans, and other objects.

Artis-Naples on FaceBook and Twitter

✭ "Beatrice Wood: Mama of Dada" goes on view November 16 at Michigan's Flint Institute of Art. The show will be up through January 12, 2014. 


Beatrice Wood, Self Portrait, 1932
Watercolor and Pencil on Paper
9-1/4" x 7-1/4"
Museum Purchase 2011.330

Though she drew and painted, Wood (1893-1998) was primarily a ceramist whose luster glazes were renowned. Her long life was fascinating. I recently read her marvelous autobiography I Shock Myself.

A DVD, Tom Neff's Beatrice Wood: Mama of Dada, was re-released in 2012; the hour-long film originally appeared in 1993. A very short clip of the documentary may be viewed at Tom Neff's Website.


Francis Naumann Lecture, "Not the Mama of Dada; Beatrice Wood's Early Career in New York" (Vimeo Video), September 2011


Flint Institute of Art on FaceBookTwitter, and YouTube

2 comments:

Hannah Stephenson said...

Eek!! Such good stuff today, Maureen! That Wisconsin Concrete Park is amazing, and great video...thanks for these links.

Hannah Stephenson said...

Eek! So much good stuff today, Maureen...Wisconsin Concrete Park looks fascinating, and that great video. Thanks for the links!