I’m planning to go to the NY Historical Society on Sunday, where a bunch of shows will be closing at the end of next week.  The two I’m most excited about are the Hudson River School and, of course, Portraits from 18th century New York.  I was there for the first time just last week to tour their library, and, boy, are they obsessed with the fact that they have collected tons of postcards and ads for phone sex services, so you know they have to be good…

I’m also very interested in a couple of exhibits at the Met, Bronzino,  and especially the Art of Illumination.  I’m also interested in Tutankhamun’s Funeral, though I think I’m bound to be disappointed, because it can’t stand in for the exhibition of Tutankhamun’s tomb which was making the rounds in the US last year, but couldn’t come to New York, because no institution here would pay Egypt’s cultural ministry the requisite (and exorbitant) fees.

Less visually stimulating, but still exciting is the display of J.D. Salinger’s letters at the Morgan Library and Museum (only until April 11th, so get there while you can…)

Its good to be back!

It was the Morgan library’s show, William Blake’s World, and it was extremely strange.  Blake himself seems to have been a great engraver, and especially good when following an artistic program/theme set by someone else, but his own ideas, which were utterly unexplained in the show, appear to have been quite crazy – he seems to have thought of himself as a new Jesus and that he was creating a new religion based on his teachings – though the show chooses to only focus on presenting his art pleasingly rather than engaging with it and the problems that it raises.  Blake’s watercolors and paintings, with which he adorned his own poetry and religious musings, have a certain power to them, but the figures always seem to be captured frozen in moments of great drama , but because their meaning is unclear, they ultimately lack the power to be fully engaging.  As my husband commented when we left the exhibition hall, (and this is certainly not the fault of the Morgan…), its kind of unclear why people think that Blake was great in the first place…

The Morgan is also having a brief (until Nov.1 ), very small (one room) show of Maurice Sendak’s drawings and drafts of “Where the Wild Things Are.”  Again, this is lovely, and it is interesting to see how Sendak changed the initial conception of the story as time passed and also how much time he actually spent working on and thinking about both the art and text for a children’s book.  The show is even more lovely for being staged in Morgan’s study, a large 3 story affair, so, as you walk around the drawing cases, you can also ogle the spines of the first editions of various bibles and books that he owned.

The Morgan’s staff seems to be more interested in presenting items from their collection than structuring an argument around them, explaining the creative process, or changes in the artists/author’s view, or engaging in any controversy at all really.  Perhaps this is fitting because they are a library as well as a museum, so they leave the arguments and controversy for the scholars who work with their collections rather than engaging in it themselves, but the whole visit still felt a little empty, even though it was fun, because no engagement with the collection seemed necessary.

For me, the best thing about the Morgan, where I had never been, was Morgan’s study, which had several lovely Hans Memling paintings, and a lavish feel between the huge solid wood desk and the plush red sofa.

The painting, the subject of which is the Torment of Saint Anthony (here’s the Wikipedia entry that explains Saint Anthony’s story – the specific subject of the painting is fleshed out here) shows the various tortures that Saint Anthony, the 4th century saint who lived in the desert as a hermit/ascetic, experienced in his efforts to stay true to his calling, even as the Devil led a determined assault against him in order to force him to abandon his principles.  The painting is simply a copy of an engraving by the 15th century German Martin Schongauer, and, here is where the disingenuous begins: the Met implies that Michelangelo’s copy is better than the original work.  While there are certainly differences, and perhaps even some improvements, such as the much ballyhooed addition of fishscales on one of the demons, Schongauer’s print shows the St. Anthony’s resignation and determination to endure the trials, while Michelangelo’s simply shows, what to my eyes, look like a blank face, and, to me, the saint’s emotions are what this composition of this subject is all about, (Of course, there are other wonderful ways to compose the painting, for example Hieronymous Bosch’s focus on the demons, while leaving the saint as a minor character in his own drama.)

Of course, I don’t mean to denigrate Michelangelo.  In any case, the painting was executed when he was barely a teenager, and it was certainly a better copy than most other painters of his age (or our own!) could have painted, and he would go on to produce many truly great works.  However, we get ahead of ourselves if we look for absolute greatness in everything that he did.  And, of course, this attempt to push genius onto Michelangelo at such a young age is connected to whether or not we perceive artists as having been born with an innate full-blown talent (or genius) for painting, or whether we perceive them as having to work to develop their talents.

Finally, and where the Met’s presentation really borders upon dishonest, is the fact that they present the painting as though it is generally agreed upon as fact to have been Michelangelo’s first painting.  However, our only evidence for such a claim is that Giorgio Vasari (1511-1574) the author of a book of biographies of Italian Renaissance painters says that Michelangelo’s first painting was a copy of Schongauer’s print of the Temptation.  Now an innocent viewer would assume that if the painting can be properly dated to the 1480s (using chemical analysis of the paints and the frame) than it must be the Michelangelo painting that Vasari mentions.  However, it turns out that there were many copies of Schongauer’s print executed in paint towards the end of the 15th century, and there isn’t necessarily anything about this one that stands out from those other ones (or at least, nothing that the Met reveals in the exhibition) to truly mark it as Michelangelo’s, something which the Met and the Kimbell Museum, are understandably not to keen to get into, given the amount of money that Kimbell recently payed to acquire this work and the amount of effort that the Met exerted to restore and clean the painting.  While I would certainly recommend seeing the painting, despite the fact that it might not be Michelangelo’s, because it is interesting on its own, and, in any case, because it might truly be Michelangelo’s first painting, this should serve as a warning to museum goers that curators and exhibition guides aren’t always as forthcoming as we might like them to be…

Augustus Saint-Gaudens is widely considered to be the greatest American sculptor of the Gilded Age (a phrase coined by Mark Twain in his eponymous book).  It is quite appropriate that the Met hosts an exhibition of Saint-Gaudens’ work now, as they have recently reopened the main section of their American wing, and a number of Saint-Gaudens’ sculptures figure prominently in the new wing’s main gallery.  (A cast of Saint Gaudens’ sculpture Diana, which once stood proud atop Madison Square Garden, is the centerpiece of the American Wing’s sculpture garden.)

Saint-Gaudens’ exhibition is doubly fitting as he shared a strong, symbiotic relationship with many patrons and board members of the late-19^th and early 20^th century Met.  Many of those individuals commissioned works from Saint-Gaudens, and a number of those works now reside in the museum’s permanent collection.  An example of this latter group, and what I thought was one of the three best examples of his work, is his bust of Louise Adele Gould.  Gould died in her mid-twenties, having been married to Charles W. Gould for less than three years.  Charles commissioned Saint-Gaudens to do a bust of his deceased spouse, and was so taken by it that he had the artist sculpt two more over the course of his lifetime.  This, third one is the most evocative.  Notice the lips, which seem so vibrant and alive, parted ever so slightly as if about to give or having just received a kiss.  Really stunning.

Saint-Gaudens early work is much less so, as the exhibition helps to (perhaps unwittingly) emphasize.  The artist, after being apprenticed at an early age, moved to Rome where he engaged in what could honestly be described as hack-work, copying famous sculptures for Americans on the Grand Tour to take home with them.  It was only later in life, after having made the right connections and gained a number of relatively noteworthy commissions, that, in my opinion, the artist became great.

It’s interesting to me how he became great.  Saint-Gaudens is seen by many (and has been for over a century) as the quintessential American sculptor.  This is fascinating, as he was born in Ireland and spent the bulk of his life in Europe.  True, he spent his childhood in the States, but he lived and spent most of his formative years on the old continent.  What makes him distinctly American?

I think the answer is that he cultivated an American persona.  This can be seen in one of his earliest big commissions – arguably the commission that made him famous.  His sculpture The Puritan, commissioned on behalf of Springfield, Massachusetts, is so stereotypically American, it could have stepped out of Hawthorne.  The Puritan, which was unveiled on Thanksgiving, is trying so hard to be American that it is almost a wonder that is succeeds.  This is a far cry from the Cicero and Augustus of Saint-Gaudens youth.

Regardless of how he became great, this chronological exhibition shows that Saint-Gaudens did indeed achieve greatness in his life.  Other than the Gould busts, two sculptures really stood out at me as knock outs.  Both were created near the end of the sculptor’s life.  The first, of General William Tecumseh Sherman, is simply remarkable.  Apparently Saint-Gaudens captured the subject from life, in ten or twelve two-hour sessions.  The knot of Sherman’s tie is undone, and the face is haggard, weary.  Real.  It’s simply stunning, and worth going to the exhibition for alone.  (According to legend, when Saint-Gaudens asked Sherman to do up his tie, the old man replied, “The General of the Armies of the United States can dress the way he chooses.”)

Finally, it would be remiss to speak of the greatness of August Saint-Gaudens without speaking of the Shaw Memorial, which is represented in the exhibition.  The Shaw memorial is a thing of grace and beauty, capturing as it does the 54^th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment, led by Colonel Robert Shaw.

(Note: The version pictured here is not the one on exhibit at the Met)

The 54^th was the first volunteer black regiment in United States history (its story is told in the film Glory), and Shaw was its commander.  All perished in a bloody assault against the confederates.  The details Saint-Gaudens gives the figures in this monumental sculpture (created in Paris, by the by) are astounding.  I was particularly moved by the features of the black infantrymen.  They are not all simple “stock” foot-soldiers being led by a formed white leader.  Instead, each is different, with his own personality and distinct features.  Some faces are resolute, others show traces of fear.  All are beautifully captured, alive in death.

The exhibits I want to see this month:

1) Still didn’t get to around to seeing the Medieval Illuminations exhibit at the Morgan Library, which closes at the end of this week, but am also really looking forward to their new exhibition of William Blake’s drawings, which replaces the Medieval exhibit.

2) Vasily Kandinsky at the Guggenheim, opening on Sept. 18th – I really know nothing about Kandinsky, and this seems like an unfortunate lacuna, so this trip is going to be all about personal enrichment.

3) 18th century portraits at the New York Historical Society.  As I’ve mentioned before, my area of interest is early and colonial America and early modern Europe, so this should be fantastic.  (Also, I’m embarrassed to say that I’ve never been to the New York Historical Society, something which I need to rectify as soon as possible.)

4) I’m also extremely excited about the New York Historical Society’s collaboration with the Bard Graduate Center for an exhibit on the material culture of late 17th century New York seen through the shop of the Dutch women Margrieta van Varick, who emigrated to New York with her minister husband in 1686, after the period of Dutch rule in New York (interesting in itself!), but came to New York by way of the Dutch trading outpost in Malaysia.

5) Oskar Kokoschka at the Neue Gallerie.  Continuing the theme of going to exhibits about artists/movements that I know nothing about – I’d like to know more about expressionism, and this exhibit seems like the perfect place to get more exposure…

Things that  I am not looking forward to, but feel obliged to report are out there:

Monet’s Waterlillies at Moma opening on Sept. 13th.  I know that most people adore Monet, but I think this is an area where reasonable people can disagree, and I can’t stand Monet.  To me, he takes everything in painting that’s about expressing passion and turmoil, and minimizes it until painting becomes exclusively about color without any feeling.  In a sentence, he makes art safe for the dentist’s office.  I might go see this anyway to see if I have been overly hasty in my current judgment, but only if I have time.

Hopefully, I’ll have more success this month than last month!  And if anyone has any suggestions, I’d love to hear them.

(My apologies for the terrible picture, but it was my 4th and best attempt, so I just gave up…)

Although it is rather depressing to see the memorabilia of 19th century Easterners who had no idea what the west or its peoples were like and because we know that the artists were in fact depicting the end of an era, the art still feels oddly compelling because of its apparent self-confidence: it declares that it has its subjects figured out and properly categorized, and it makes the world seem neat and simple.

The museum, however, does its best to counteract this world conjured by white Americans/Europeans for white American/Europeans by including works by Native Americans, some of which comment upon and challenge the stereotypes that the museum’s collection encourage, and some of which simply showcase the talents of Native American artists at work today.  The special exhibition of works by Tammy Garcia, an artist working with traditional Native American motiphs (at least so they seemed, to my utterly inexpert eyes), but in new mediums, like bronze and glass (it is in Corning, so one can never be too far from glass…) was interesting and went some of the way towards balancing the collection’s emphasis on white interpretations of Native Americans with Native American interpretations of their own culture.

Besides, who can resist a buffalo head hanging on a gallery wall?  It was apparently someone’s pet until the age of 2, when it was killed, and its head was preserved for hanging…If that isn’t enough to make you want to go to a museum, I don’t know what it is…

I actually really enjoyed looking at the glass (amazing collection – see a couple of photos below, and yes, that second one is a chessboard with Catholics and Jews as opposing pieces – but of particular interest, at least to me, were the Egyptian glass, 16th and 17th century glass objects, the Frank Lloyd Wright designed windows).  However, my enjoyment seemed to come in spite of the museum’s best efforts rather than because of them, because the collection of the museum is presented in chronological order with the typical case containing between 10 and 20 objects (and monster full sized wall displays with more like 40-50).

The museum makes stunningly little effort to get its visitors to actually look at individual pieces or understand why any of them were made.  Instead, it seems like they just disgorged their entire collection of objects into the galleries and figured that whatever stuck with the viewer, stuck, and whatever didn’t, well, as long as you buy stuff in the gift shop, it doesn’t really matter…

The special exhibition of contemporary glass (defined as being from the post 1960s period, when glass became a subject that could be studied in universities and art schools, i.e., when glass became a scholarly and artistic pursuit rather than a trade) showcased the amazing versatility of glass: its ability to look at times delicate and ephemeral, and at other times, heavy and stolid, and the ways in which a wide variety and intensity of colors can be incorporated into glass objects.  However, it seemed utterly unconnected to the rest of the collection (into which it is going to be incorporated once the exhibition ends): how can we account for the fact that glass was made for centuries by tradesmen, a fact which the museum does  not really acknowledge at all (or least by people whom others would have considered tradesmen, even if they themselves believed they were artists…) but that it suddenly became art in the 1960s?

Finally, about the gift shop and the glass making: my rule for gift shops in museum is that the ratio of gift shop to museum should be about 1:4; that is, for every square foot of gift shop, there should be four of museum collection/exhibition, a rule which the Corning ostentatiously ignores, perhaps because it is in Western NY, where land is cheap, and there’s room for everything.  However, the entire bottom floor of the museum is devoted to gift shop, a space roughly equal to that of the entire museum collection (without the exhibition space).  Finally, as per my previous post, I was really looking forward to making my own glass object, and to the experience of creating something of my own in a museum rather than simply looking at the creations of others.  However, this turned out to be a bit of a over-advertisement: I watched a friendly glass student make a glass sculpture out of the colors I selected, without really doing anything myself.

So I guess I would say that the museum has a compelling and wonderful collection of objects that are worth a visit, but, as for the re-branding of the museum as a site for play, I’m not exactly sold…

Likely:

1) Corning Museum of Glass in Corning, NY.  I’ve wanted to go to Corning for years, but never got the chance.  Luckily, I’ll be in Western NY this week, so it’s on.  (Please ignore the kind of ridiculous/unprofessional looking website…the museum has an amazing collection of glass objects which spans the period from the 2nd century B.C. to the most contemporary glass makers.)  Also, I’ve heard that they have a make your own glass program, and I enjoy the ever infrequent opportunities to make things with my hands.

2) James Ensor at MOMA .  I’ve made plans to see this with a couple of friends, and although I really know nothing about Ensor, his works look extremely imaginative, both darkly humorous and brilliantly colorful.

3) Medieval Illuminations at the Morgan Library. I studied medieval history in college, so I’m always a sucker for anything medieval.  Also, I always hope I’ll improve at identifying the iconography in medieval art, so I figure that the more I see, the better I’ll be.

4) Yinka Shonibare at the Brooklyn Museum of Art.  I first heard of Shonibare a couple of years ago at a conference on the Dutch Empire in the 17th century.  He uses (often headless) mannequins dressed in the 18th/19th century European style, but doing unexpected things and wearing Dutch fabric that was sent to West Africa in the slave trade to question the continuing effects of colonialism on our perceptions of the world.

Unlikely:

1) The Golden Age of Dutch Seascapes at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, MA.  Its the 17th century Netherlands, my area of study, so really don’t want to miss this, but am also not planning  a trip to Boston anytime soon…

2) Exploring the Early Americas at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC.  Full disclosure: I worked at the Library of Congress one summer on an exhibition, and it was amazing.  They have great collections of everything in their vast holdings, so its always worth it to take a look at what they’re showing.  This exhibit looks like it has a lot of rare maps and also a lot of objects that present the Indian experience of the Spanish conquest.

Before anyone gets up in arms, I was in Boston and Washington in the past couple of months and saw a bunch of the current exhibitions then, and I’ll be blogging about a bunch of them in the future!

The New Yorker piece paints Campbell as a devoted academic (which again I love), but some of his statements made me nervous.  For example, his devotion to including more technology in museums.  Maybe I’m a luddite, but I’ve been perfectly satisfied with my non-technological museum experiences thus far, and computers rarely seem to add anything to exhibitions, except for displaying a smudgy, fingerprinted screen that begs the question of where the hands that previously touched it have been.  (The one exception was actually at the Goudstikker exhibition reviewed previously, where a computer let you flip through the pages of Goudstikker’s notebook – on display with only one page exposed – so you could see what other non-present painters/paintings Goudstikker’s collection contained).  Also, I didn’t love his idea to reduce the number of exhibitions per year, though I do understand that he might be forced to do that because of the current economic situation and the high cost of running the Met.  But I’d rather money be spent on more exhibitions than computerizing exhibition spaces.

Finally, I wasn’t wild about his idea that exhibitions need to be better calibrated to attract popular attention.  Whereas Campbell’s predecessor, Philippe de Montebello, believed that people would come to the museum, if the exhibitions were wonderful and trusted that ordinary people could still be wowed by art, Campbell seems to think that special efforts need to made to draw people in to the museum.  While it’s unclear in the New Yorker piece exactly what measures Campbell plans on taking to effect this goal, it seems a bit onimous to me.

For now, I’m trying to keep an open mind about the Campbell pick (and certainly, it will be difficult to judge anything for the next couple of years, while exhibitions approved by his predecessor are still being staged), I’m a bit nervous.

One of my rules for measuring the (admittedly, personal) success of an exhibition is if I feel that the exhibition has changed the way I think about the world, and at the end of Hidden Treasures, I felt that the answer was an enthusiastic yes for several reasons:

1) I had never realized how central Afganistan was to the trading that linked China, India, the Middle East, and the Meditteranean, but once I saw the map at the beginning of the exhibition, it hit me that Afganistan was destined for such an important role in the age of animal power.  Wish I could link to the map, but can’t find it online - here’s one that they’re selling at the met store, which isn’t as good, because it doesn’t show China…)

2) I saw an art form that I had never seen before: glass with a painted design (not actually sure how craftsmen did this), but its incredibly beautiful, and I wish that the exhibition had spent more time explaining it.  (Of course, there may have been more explanation, but the exhibition was ridiculously crowded on a hot/humid Sunday, so I might have missed something)

3) Finally, the last room of the exhibition is just spectacular.  It contains grave goods found with mummified remains from a 1st century A.D. site, and they truly rival anything that you can see from (much earlier) Egyptian tombs.  The whole room just has the glint of gold in it: two of my favorites were these bracelets and this crown, which folds flat.  For more highlights, look here.

4) I just had no idea that civilization in Afganistan in the last centuries B.C. and first two centuries A.D. were so productive and so open to cultural influences from China, India, Greece, and Rome, and one of the things that this exhibition did brilliantly was present and support the argument that Afganistan’s peoples were constantly exposed to new ideas (at least in terms of artisanal production/design), and eagerly borrowed motiphs and techniques.  I think that more exhibitions should have the goal of teaching you something about the world, rather than just showing you beautiful things.