Art Bites
A few recent stops and impressions
Time for another art round up. I’m behind on what I’ve seen.
I went to see the Whitney Biennial (through August 23rd) with a friend a few weeks ago and enjoyed its diversity and range. It felt thoughtful and engaged in a low-key way— not too pretentious or gratuitously provocative. I admired Agosto Machado’s constructed shrines, made from bits of memorabilia, then was saddened to learn of his death since. These tender, rickety structures bear witness to a downtown art scene that was ravaged by AIDS. Subsequently, I saw that Hilton Als in New Yorker didn’t much like the show, although he made an exception for Machado. I’m not sure that I agree with his complaint that the artists don’t acknowledge their influences though. Perhaps they could or should in their interviews, but the art itself should stand on its own, with its influences visible or not, according to each viewer.
Much has been made of the mother-daughter pair in the show: Carmen de Monteflores and Andrea Fraser, respectively. The New York Times published a profile of the two women with the provocative title, “Did This Artist’s Career Bloom Because Her Mother’s Career Died?” The piece is a thoughtful look at the gendered dynamics of the art world across a generation— in one very specific instance. It contrasts Monteflores’s art in storage since the 1960s with Fraser’s more conceptual works of the past few decades and brings them together into a “family portrait.” Being in the room with de Monteflores’s huge bright cutouts of female bodies and Fraser’s small, pale wax figures of children was very moving. As artists, the two women seem to have a lot to say to one another.
A Detour to Japan
With my sister later in the month I stumbled on a lovely ceramics exhibit called “Home to Home” at the Japan Society (until May 10th). Kawai Kanjiro’s career spanned most of the twentieth century and you can watch him moving from elegant, vernacular pieces in the 1920s and 1930s to his more expressive, multicolored work in the 1950s. Later he moved on to print-making and sculpting in wood, as well as designing his own furniture for the Kyoto home referred to in the exhibit’s title. It’s a metaphor that the show earns. A viewing room includes a film clip of the curators carefully wrapping up pieces of pottery for transit to New York. The Japan Society space becomes an intimate, if temporary, new home for this artist’s belongings.
A Stop in Paris
On another busy Saturday with my husband and a different friend I bounced between two photography shows set in Paris: Atget: The Making of a Reputation at the International Center of Photography (through May 4th) and a small selection of Brassai at Howard Greenberg Gallery (already closed, I’m sorry to say). It was a retro day, with sandwiches at an old-timey NYC luncheonette between the two.
The Brassais vibrate with life. The photographs interrupt conversations in corner banquettes and document embraces at queer drag parties. They stand on street corners to watch sex workers ply their trade and spy on young women lounging together in dressing rooms. Or rather, Brassai does all that, but he seems an enigma behind his pseudonym, as if he’s sacrificed his own realness for theirs.
After all that, the Atget seemed a retreat into an abandoned world. His famous streets and storefronts are empty, the worldview antiquated. The work is admirable: restrained and elegant but back to back with Brassai it seemed like an exercise in tepid nostalgia. For me, the small vignettes of architectural details had the most charm.
That’s all, folks. I’ve written this post on Substack’s blinking web interface: it keeps reloading the screen whenever it auto-saves, unpredictably. It’s maddening to keep landing back at the top of the page, mid-sentence. I realize I could have drafted it elsewhere and pasted it in, instead of persisting through this. But I also realize that sometimes I like to do things the hard way. I took a subway and a bus to the airport for a recent flight, carrying my luggage on my back. I booked a redeye with two stopovers for the return. It was fine. This is fine too; if it’s rougher than usual, I apologize.
I appreciate all the responses to my last, more personal post. You can see that I am pacing myself by returning to an art round up this week. The memoir about my father’s art career is still in motion. I’m waiting to hear from publishers and eager to hear from you all as well. Thank you for being here!
I enjoyed the glimpse of the Andrea Fraser/Carmen de Monteflores pairing (both new to me).
Perhaps doing things the hard way can slow us down and make us appreciate the journey/process more.