Airport, please! heads to Tate St. Ives for exhibition of vietnamese artist/filmmaker Thao Nguyen Phan’s reflection on the Mekong River

Thao Nguyễn Phan First Rain, Brise Soleil. Tate St. Ives. UK

Thao Nguyen Phan is an internationally renowned artist/filmmaker celebrated for her poetic, multi-layered artworks that explore the historical and ecological issues facing her homeland Vietnam, while speaking to broader ideas around tradition, ideology, ritual and environmental change. In our post-pandemic era, the effect of ecological indifference has peaked as we see and experience the devastation by fire of California forests and tycoons sweeping across the South, as well as social issues as we experience the devastation of the Omicron virus on the population. The loss of friends, family and loved ones, the double-masked fear of contracting the virus, has created a never before experience of social distancing that leaves us isolated and afraid. Thus, in its own way, the work of Thao Nguyen Phan resonates with each of us.

Thao Nguyen Phan
exhibition

Phan’s mesmerising work intertwines mythology and folklore with urgent issues around industrialisation, food security and the environment. The threat posed by the destruction and excessive consumption of Earth’s resources is a recurring theme across her practice.

Through storytelling, and the mixing of official and unofficial histories, her work often amplifies narratives that are less well documented, or in some cases obscured.

This exhibition will bring together a selection of Phan’s videos, paintings and sculptures from the past five years, alongside new work exhibited for the first time. This includes First Rain, Brise Soleil (2021–ongoing), a major new multi-channel film commission, and an accompanying series of paintings.

THAO NGUYEN PHAN: THE ARTIST

Trained as a painter, Phan is a multimedia artist whose practice encompasses video, painting and installation. Drawing from literature, philosophy and daily life, Phan observes ambiguous issues in social conventions and history. She started working in film when she began her MFA in Chicago. Phan exhibits internationally, with solo and group exhibitions including Tate St Ives, (Cornwall, UK, 2022); Chisenhale gallery (London, 2020); WIELS (Brussels, 2020); Rockbund Art Museum (Shanghai, 2019); Lyon Biennale (Lyon, 2019); Sharjah Biennial (Sharjah Art Foundation, 2019); Gemäldegalerie (Berlin, 2018); Dhaka Art Summit (2018); Para Site (Hong Kong, 2018); Factory Contemporary Art Centre (Ho Chi Minh City, 2017); Nha San Collective (Hanoi, 2017); and Bétonsalon (Paris, 2016), among others. She was shortlisted for the 2019 Hugo Boss Asia Art Award. In addition to her work as a multimedia artist, she is co-founder of the collective Art Labor, which explores cross disciplinary practices and develops art projects that benefit the local community.

Thao Nguyen Phan is expanding her “theatrical fields”, including what she calls performance gesture and moving images. Phan is a 2016-2017 Rolex Protégée, mentored by internationally acclaimed, New York-based, performance and video artist, Joan Jonas. Thao Nguyen Phan lives and works in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. She is the recipient of the Han Nefkens Foundation – LOOP Video Art Award 2018. Tate St Ives is her first solo museum exhibition in the UK.

Tate St. Ives

 

TATE ST. IVES

Tate St Ives is a public art gallery in St Ives, Cornwall, England, exhibiting work by modern British artists with links to the St Ives area. The Tate also took over management of another museum in the town, the Barbara Hepworth Museum and Sculpture Garden, The exhibition will intertwine folklore and myth with urgent issues around the rural, industrialisation, food security, and the environment. The artworks consist of videos, silk paintings and mixed media work. A new film First Rain/BriseSoleil and series of paintings will be specially created for the exhibition.

Thao Nguyen Phan lives and works in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. She is the recipient of the Han Nefkens Foundation – LOOP Video Art Award 2018. This is her first solo museum exhibition in the UK.

THAO NGUYEN PHAN : BECOMING ÅLLUVIUM/THE MEKONG RIVER

Thao Nguyễn Phan
Becoming Alluvium

26 September 2020 – 13 December 2020

Chisenhale Gallery presents Becoming Alluvium, the first solo exhibition in a UK institution by Ho Chi Minh City-based artist Thao Nguyen Phan. Working with painting, installation and moving image, Phan’s work explores history and tradition through non-fiction and fictional narratives.

Becoming Alluvium continues Phan’s ongoing research on the Mekong River, which runs through Tibet, China, Burma, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. Composed of two elements – a single channel film work and a series of lacquer and silk paintings – the works simultaneously explore real and imaginary worlds.

Thao Nguyễn Phan
Tate St. Ives

This newly commissioned video work is structured around three chapters telling stories of destruction, reincarnation and renewal, centered around the ebb and flow of the Mekong River. Combining self-shot footage, animation and found imagery, the work weaves narratives concerning industrialisation, food security and ecological sustainability with folklore and myth.

An accompanying series of paintings titled Perpetual Brightness, made in collaboration with artist Truong Cong Tung, further explore the cultural, agricultural and economic significance of the river. The watercolour on silk paintings depict characters in various states – from insects playing musical instruments to a young boy caressing an endangered Irrawaddy dolphin. Presented in frames made with Vietnamese lacquer, eggshell and silver leaf, the series tell stories of the past, present and future of the Mekong River and its inhabitants.

thao Nguyễn Phan
Monsoon Melody

Phan’s new commission builds on previous works Tropical Siesta (2017) and Mute Grain (2019), which collectively address Phan’s urgent call to awaken from a ‘state of collective amnesia’ in relation to the threat posed by excessive consumption of Earth’s resources.

Mekong River

Becoming Alluvium is produced and commissioned by Han Nefkens Foundation in collaboration with: Joan Miró Foundation, Barcelona; WIELS Contemporary Art Centre, Brussels; and Chisenhale Gallery. The exhibition is accompanied by an illustrated publication, co-published by the exhibition partners, the Han Nefkens Foundation and Mousse Publishing.

Thao Nguyễn Phan

Becoming Alluvium is Phan’s most recent work: a single-channel colour film continuing her research into the Mekong River and the cultures that it nurtures. Through allegory, it explores the environmental and social changes caused by the expansion of agriculture, by overfishing and the economic migration of farmers to urban areas. “The Mekong civilization can be summarized in terms of materiality – the river of wet rice civilization – and in terms of spirituality – the river of Buddhism,” explains Phan. “However,” she continues, “unlike the teachings of compassion and mindfulness that are taught by Buddha, in reality, the land through which the Mekong flows experiences extreme turbulence and conflict […]. In recent decades, human intervention on the river body has been so violent that it has forever transformed the nature of its flow and the fate of its inhabitants.”

Despite its non-chronological narrative and associative logic, Phan’s film can be divided into three main chapters. The first opens with a citation from The Gardener by Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore, published in 1913, which speak of the unity of the human and natural universe. The film recounts the collapse of a dam that caused the death of many villagers downstream, including two teenager brothers. “They reconcile in their next life, in which the older brother reincarnates as the Irrawaddy dolphin, and the little brother as the water hyacinth,” says Phan. “Both are iconic,” she continues, “the Irrawaddy dolphin being a beloved fish of the Mekong, the water hyacinth being a notorious invasive plant.” The work manifests her belief in the moving image as a “cascade of reincarnations,” influenced by her upbringing in a traditional Vietnamese family, where Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism co-exist alongside a multitude of local deities.

 The second chapter of the film combines images of people navigating the Mekong as they go about their daily lives, with a voiceover reading from L’Amant [The Lover] by the French author Marguerite Duras. This is an autobiographical novel published in 1984 that recounts Duras’ coming-of-age in French Indochina (present-day Vietnam). This chapter of Phan’s film is the most documentary in its visual language, yet through its lyrical tone manages to mix the epic with the everyday; for example, combining images of rubbish heaps with reflections on waste from Italian author Italo Calvino’s 1972 novel Le città invisibili [Invisible Cities]. By citing such writers, Phan taps into a rich literary tradition of philosophical travelogues and imagined or (mis)remembered stories of far-flung lands.

SOFT WATER HARD STONE 2021 Triennial at the New Museum

https://www.newmuseum.org/exhibitions/view/2021-triennial-soft-water-hard-stone

The title of the 2021 Triennial, “Soft Water Hard Stone,” is taken from a Brazilian proverb, versions of which are found across cultures:

The proverb can be said to have two meanings: if one persists long enough, the desired effect can eventually be achieved; and time can destroy even the most perceptibly solid materials. The title speaks to ideas of resilience and perseverance, and the impact that an insistent yet discrete gesture can have in time. It also provides a metaphor for resistance, as water—a constantly flowing and transient material—is capable of eventually dissolving stone—a substance associated with permanence, but also composed of tiny particles that can collapse under pressure.

In this moment of profound change, where structures that were once thought to be stable are disintegrating or on the edge of collapse, the 2021 Triennial recognizes artists re-envisioning traditional models, materials, and techniques beyond established paradigms. Their works exalt states of transformation, calling attention to the malleability of structures, porous and unstable surfaces, and the fluid and adaptable potential of both technological and organic mediums. Throughout the exhibition, artists address the regenerative potential of the natural world and our inseparable relationship to it, and grapple with entrenched legacies of colonialism, displacement, and violence. Their works look back at overlooked histories and artistic traditions, while at the same time look forward toward the creative potential that might give dysfunctional or discarded remains new life. It is through their reconfigurations and reimaginings that we are reminded of not only our temporality, but also our adaptability— fundamental characteristics we share, and that keep us human.

The LRFA blog has always appreciated the influence and appreciation of Asian culture in our 21st Century world. In the face of impending war with the Ukraine, learning to be still and accepting fate with grace are two virtues, difficult to achieve, may be welcome traits  in these uncertain times.

 

Heading to Hauser & Wirth’s new gallery, in Monaco, with Airport, please!

Louise Bourgeois
Spider in Monaco

Over a nearly 30-year history, Hauser & Wirth has created physical spaces in locations where their artists and collectors reside—of course in the large urban cities of London, New York, and Los Angeles but also in legendary resort communities and seasonal gathering spots such as Southampton and St. Moritz. In July 2021, Hauser & Wirth will also open an extraordinary center for the arts on King’s Island, in the port of Mahon in Menorca. The artists and estates represented by the gallery has always been  its driving force for expanding in the areas of art, education, conservation and sustainable development. The impact of the events of the last year and one-half have acted as a compelling catalyst to accelerate Hauser & Wirth, and every major network of galleries, auction houses, and art fairs, in developing new and innovative, often technologically based, ways to present and sell works of art.

https://www.hauserwirth.com/

Hauser & Wirth
Gallery Interior
Monaco

On June 19th, located in the heart of Monaco, near the historic Hôtel de Paris, Hauser & Wirth’s latest gallery features a spectacular main exhibition space, an impressive 350 square yards cube with 30 foot high walls, lit by a dramatic skylight. The conversion of the site has been conducted by Selldorf Architects, New York, which has collaborated with Hauser & Wirth on its spaces internationally since the founding of the gallery in 1992. In Monaco, Hauser & Wirth occupies the lower spaces of a building designed by Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners and owned by the Société des Bains de Mer.

https://www.hauserwirth.com/news/32176-hauser-wirth-monaco-opens-inaugural-exhibition-louise-bourgeois

The inaugural exhibition ‘Louise Bourgeois. Maladie de l’Amour’ (Love Sickness although it sounds so much better in French!) runs from  June 19th until September 26th, 2021. A monumental public sculpture from the French American artist’s Spider series, a bronze arachnid over three meters tall, will be installed in the gardens adjacent to the gallery.

One Monte-Carlo
Gallery facade
Monaco

‘When we were invited to play a part in the continuing revival of the art scene in Monaco,’ says Iwan Wirth, President, Hauser & Wirth, ‘we saw that it offered an exceptional opportunity to present our artists in the heart of city, engaging with the vibrant contemporary scene across the south of France, strengthening our European presence. In former times, Monaco was a destination for artists, writers, and filmmakers who were as captivated as we have been by the Côte d’Azur.

Louise Bourgeois
Hauser & Wirth Monaco

INAUGURAL EXHIBITION, HAUSER & WIRTH, MONACO: LOUISE BOURGEOIS

The works in the inaugural exhibition by Louise Bourgeois span a period between 1947-2008 and draw on recurring themes of anxiety and longing, emotions which the artist repeatedly evoked to create her personal visual vocabulary. Along with Bourgeois’ monumental Spider sculpture dating from 1996, one of the artist’s most enduring and iconic motifs, two further aluminium sculptures are suspended inside the gallery. ‘Untitled’ (2004) gently rotates, as a continuously morphing form. The abstract spiral belongs to an important series Bourgeois made during the 1990s and shares a particular affinity to a previous work entitled ‘Les Bienvenus’ (1996), commissioned by the French Government and installed in the Parc de la Mairie in the village of Choisy-le-Roi, France, where she grew up.

Louise Bourgeois

LOUISE BOURGEOIS

Bourgeois’s work is inextricably entwined with her life and experiences. ‘Art,’ as she once remarked in an interview, ‘is the experience, the re-experience of a trauma.’  Employing motifs, dramatic colors, dense skeins of thread, and a vast diversity of media, Bourgeois’s distinctive symbolic code enmeshes the complexities of the human experience and individual introspection.

Rather than pursuing formalist concerns for their own sake, Bourgeois endeavored to find the most appropriate means of expressing her ideas and emotions, combining a wide range of materials – variously, fabric, plaster, latex, marble and bronze – with an endless repertoire of found objects. Although her work covers the range of painting, drawing, printmaking, and performance, Bourgeois remains best known for her sculpture.

 

Bourgeois’s work was included in the seminal exhibition ‘Eccentric Abstraction,’ curated by Lucy Lippard for New York’s Fischbach Gallery in 1966. Major breakthroughs on the international scene followed with The Museum of Modern Art in New York’s 1982 retrospective of her work; Bourgeois’s participation in Documenta IX in 1992; and her representation of the United States at the 45th Venice Biennale in 1993. In 2001, Bourgeois was the first artist commissioned to fill the Tate Modern’s cavernous Turbine Hall. The Tate Modern’s 2007 retrospective of her works, which subsequently traveled to the Centre Pompidou in Paris; The Guggenheim Museum in New York; The Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles; and The Hirshhorn Museum & Sculpture Garden in Washington D.C., cemented her legacy as a foremost artist of late Modernism.

 

In response to the isolation and distancing of the pandemic, many of the major galleries have successfully opened branches in luxurious resort areas, Palm Beach and the Hamptons, on the East Coast. The debut of a new Hauser & Wirth gallery on the Cote d’Azur is a seductive destination and supports Monaco’s efforts to establish an active art scene with Monaco Art Week and the Monte-Carlo fair.

See for yourself! Airport, please!

The LRFA blog welcomes Meg Malloy, partner at Sikkema Jenkins & Co. gallery

Meg Malloy
Partner
Sikkema Jenkins & Co.

SIKKEMA JENKINS & CO. ENJOYS A LONG AND RESPECTED HISTORY IN THE CONTEMPORARY ART WORLD FOR DISCOVERING EMERGING ARTISTS WHO GO ON TO GAIN GREAT CRITICAL AND COMMERCIAL SUCCESS AND SUPPORTING ESTABLISHED CONTEMPORARY ARTISTS WHOSE CAREERS THEY NURTURE. LOCATED AT 530 WEST 22nd STREET IN THE WEST CHELSEA ARTS DISTRICT IN NEW YORK CITY, THE GALLERY WAS FOUNDED IN 1991 BY BRENT SIKKEMA AS WOOSTER GARDENS. BRENT SIKKEMA BEGAN HIS GALLERY WORK IN 1971 AT THE DIRECTOR OF EXHIBITIONS AT THE VISUAL STUDIES WORKSHOP IN ROCHESTER, NEW YORK. HE OPENED HIS FIRST GALLERY IN BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS, IN 1976. MICHAEL JENKINS, WHO HAD WORKED ON PROJECTS WITH THE GALLERY SINCE ITS OPENING IN 1991, JOINED AS DIRECTOR IN 1996, AND BECAME A PARTNER IN 2003.

Sikkema Jenkins Gallery
530 West 22nd Street
Chelsea, New York

SIKKEMA JENKINS & CO. WAS ORIGINALLY LOCATED ON WOOSTER STREET IN SoHo AND IN 1999 MOVED TO ITS PRESENT CHELSEA LOCATION SUBSEQUENTLY UNDERGOING EXTENSIVE RENOVATION AND EXPANSION.  THE GALLERY IS AN EXTREMELY INVITING ENVIRONMENT, WITH A DEDICATED AND ACCESSIBLE STAFF EAGER TO EDUCATE AS WELL AS TO PLACE WORKS.

MEG MALLOY, A PARTNER AT SIKKEMA JENKINS, IS THE PERFECT REPRESENTATIVE OF THE OPEN UNPRETENTIOUS SPIRIT OF THE GALLERY AND THE LRFA BLOG IS DELIGHTED TO WELCOME HER TODAY.

MEG, THANK YOU, IN THIS BUSY SEASON OF THE ART YEAR, FOR YOUR CONTRIBUTION TO THE LRFA BLOG.

Vik Muniz: Surfaces
Current exhibition
Sikkema Jenkins & Co.

WHAT WERE YOUR EXPERIENCES GROWING UP THAT ENCOURAGED AN INTEREST IN ART?

I was born in Chicago and raised in Glencoe, a suburb north of the city. I am the oldest of six.   My mother had wanted to be an artist, and going to museums was a part of my childhood.  The Art Institute also had a great outreach program and before any school trip there, museum docents would come to school and educate us about what we might see.  My parents were involved in a local theater group and I took part in the youth version, always on the management side as a producer or v.p.-  never as a performer.    In high school and college, friends and I used to take the train to the city and to go the Art Institute.  We would just wander.  I was always struck by Georgia O’Keeffe’s Sky Above Clouds, which was installed at the top of a grand staircase at the museum: it seemed so majestic, and it motivated me to read her biography. I loved thinking about her work, and what sounded to me like an impossibly exciting life in art.

 

Georgia O’Keeffe
Sky Above Clouds

DID YOU PAINT OR HAVE AMBITIONS TO BECOME A PROFESSIONAL ARTIST?

 I never had any talent for art making, though  I enjoyed it.  I really thought I would go into publishing. I worked on the school newspapers in both junior high and high school.  One close friend did have parents who were collectors, and another had a mom who ran a gallery downtown.    

WHAT WAS YOUR ACADEMIC BACKGROUND, AND HOW DID IT LEAD YOU INTO THE ART WORLD?

 I went to The University of Illinois at Champaign Urbana and studied Comp Lit.  

My plan was to follow my favorite aunt’s career path in publishing.   Because comp lit is interdisciplinary, we often looked at visual art. My interest in its history was piqued, and I added art history classes to my course of study.  I was a resident advisor and had a number of artists on my floor  – I  loved visiting their studios and talking about what they  were doing.

Kara Walker
Turbine Commission Tate Modern

Then  I took a museum studies class and decided I should go into museum education.   With that goal in mind, I decided to go to grad school in art history, and ended up at UC Berkeley. There I had a job at the art museum bookstore, and then became the intern for Connie Lewallen, a wonderful curator and human being.   She ran the Matrix program, which focused on one contemporary artist at a time in a frequently changing exhibition program, always with an accompanying brochure.  I loved the variety and the engagement with the artists and their ideas.  It was compelling.  I also became the de facto house sitter for the curators — all of whom had great contemporary art and libraries, and I loved being immersed in those environments.

Erin Shirreff
San Francisco Museum of Art

SO MANY INFLUENCES LEADING YOU TO NEW YORK AND A CAREER IN THE ARTS. IN OUR NEXT LRFA BLOG, MEG WILL  DETAIL HER FIRST EXPERIENCES IN THE NEW YORK ART WORLD.

PLEASE JOIN US!

It’s always about the image, at the Yancey Richardson Gallery with director Matthew Whitworth

Laszlo Moholy-Nagy
K VII
Oil on canvas
Shape of Light at the Tate Modern
until October 14, 2018

CURRENTLY AT THE TATE MODERN, THE EXHIBITION SHAPE OF LIFE EXPLORES THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PHOTOGRAPHY AND ABSTRACT ACT, A SUBJECT FIRST ADDRESSED IN THE UK ON SUCH A MAJOR SCALE. THE BIRTH OF ABSTRACT ART AND THE INVENTION OF PHOTOGRAPHY WERE BOTH DEFINING MOMENTS IN OUR VISUAL HISTORY.  SPANNING THE CENTURY FROM THE 1920s TO THE PRESENT, THE SHOW BRINGS TO LIFE THE INNOVATION FOUND IN PHOTOGRAPHY AND ITS SHARED HISTORY WITH ABSTRACT ART. THANKS TO THIS EXHIBITION, WHICH CONTINUES THROUGH OCTOBER 2018, WE CAN TRACE THE DIALOGUE BETWEEN SUCH PHOTOGRAPHERS AS MAN RAY, ALFRED STIEGLITZ, JARED BARK AND MAYA ROCHAT.

Jared Bark
Untitled (JBARK PB 1973)
Vintage gelatin silver photobooth prints

IN ANTICIPATION OF THE TATE MODERN SHOW, THE APRIL/MAY SOLO EXHIBITION AT YANCEY RICHARDSON GALLERY IN NEW YORK FEATURED JARED BARK’S AMAZING PHOTOBOOTH PIECES COMPRISED OF UNIQUE VINTAGE PHOTO BOOTH ASSEMBLAGES THAT FORM ABSTRACT IMAGES. MINIMALISM IN GENERAL AND THE WORK OF SOL LEWITT IN PARTICULAR IMPACT ON BARK’S PHOTOGRAPHY, A PERFECT EXAMPLE OF THE DIALOGUE BETWEEN ABSTRACTION IN PAINTING AND IN PHOTOGRAPHY.

YANCEY RICHARDSON OPENED IN SOHO IN 1995 AND MOVED TO CHELSEA IN 2000. CURRENTLY LOCATED IN A GREAT GROUND FLOOR EXHIBITION SPACE ON 22^nd STREET, YANCEY RICHARDSON GALLERY IS ONE OF THE FIRST DEDICATED TO PHOTO-BASED ART.

TODAY, THE LRFA BLOG IS DELIGHTED TO CONTINUE ITS CONVERSATION WITH MATTHEW WHITWORTH, A DIRECTOR AT THE GALLERY.

http://www.yanceyrichardson.com/

Rachel Perry
Soundtrack to my Life
February – March 2018

HOW DO YOU SEE THE EVOLUTION OF THE GALLERY IN PARTICULAR AND THE PHOTOGRAPHY MARKET IN GENERAL SINCE YOU HAVE BEEN THE DIRECTOR AND SINCE YOU HAVE BEEN IN THE ART WORLD?

 With the gallery’s move 4 years ago to a ground-floor space on the same block, I can’t help but think that we’re seen as a more of an equal to the larger galleries showing painting, sculpture, and other works on paper. It levels the playing field a bit, as far as attendance for sure, to be able to be seen from the sidewalk. With that being said, along with a forward thinking program, we’ve developed quite a few new relationships with collectors who had never purchased a photograph or walked into a “photography gallery” before. That cross pollination can also be seen in the mixed-media art fairs we participate in, where we tend to do quite a bit better sales wise than at the photography specific ones. This has certainly changed since I started so many years ago when, if you wanted a specific piece by an artist, you knew there was probably only one place you could get it.

Bryan Graf
Field Recording (Sun Room)
Unique chromogenic print

HOW HAS TECHNOLOGY AFFECTED THE NATURE OF PHOTOGRAPHY?

One thing I’ve noticed is that the artists that use digital technology, don’t seem to be trying to make it as good as or just like analog anymore. Digital photography and printmaking have crossed into their own realm, where it’s OK to be digital and use the technology to its own end. Funny, though — now there’s been a return to analog with younger artists. It’s hip to use film and listen to vinyl records.

Gregory Crewdson
The Haircut, 2014
from the series Cathedral of the Pines

WHAT ARE SOME OF THE TECHNICAL ADVANCES THAT PHOTOGRAPHERS ARE EXPERIMENTING WITH THAT CHANGE THE IDEA OF WHAT A PHOTOGRAPH SHOULD BE?

Speaking to my previous point a bit more, I like to refer back to Gregory Crewdson’s last show at Gagosian. While I had mixed thoughts on the subject matter, I thought the printmaking and technical aspects of the work were so new and curious. They really were their own “thing.”

David Maisel
Terminal Mirage 22
Archival pigment printIN WHAT WAYS HAS THE ART OF PHOTOGRAPHY REMAINED THE SAME?

It’s always going to be about the image and it’s underlying strength.

DO YOU AGREE THAT PHOTOGRAPHY HAS TAKEN A TREMENDOUS LEAP FORWARD AS AN ESTABLISHED ART FORM AND AN AREA TO COLLECT?

Yes, absolutely. It used to be achieved by scale. Take the photographs of Andreas Gursky and Jeff Wall. There had never been prints that big before. Were we seduced by their imagery or their size? Today, more importantly, I see artists using photography to expand, and in some cases clarify, their voice. For example Mickalene Thomas. She may be best known for her bedazzled paintings taking on classical male artists’ views of women, but she broke out of an earlier rut in her practice by picking up a camera. She continues to make new photographic work today.

Mickalene Thomas

IN OUR NEXT LRFA BLOG POST, MATTHEW WILL PROFILE THE CURRENT COLLECTOR BASE AND EXPLORE PHOTOGRAPHY’S EARLIER INFLUENCES.

STAY TUNED!

 

Tis the season! Art books for everyone on your list.

SONIA DELAUNAY
2015 Retrospective
Tate Museum, London

AS WE BOLT THROUGH THE DAYS, PARTICULARLY AT THIS TIME OF YEAR, GARNERING NEWS, INFORMATION AND UPDATES FROM OUR PHONES AND LAPTOPS, IT IS A RARE DELIGHT TO SIT AND LEAF THROUGH A BEAUTIFULLY BOUND AND RICHLY ILLUSTRATED ART BOOK ENJOYING THE IMAGES OF THE WORKS AND ABSORBING THE BIOGRAPHICAL AND AESTHETIC SUBSTANCE OF AN ARTIST’S LIFE. IRONICALLY, JUST AS I AM PLANNING TO POST DOUG FLAMM OF URSUS BOOKS’ EXCEPTIONAL RECOMMENDATIONS FOR HOLIDAY GIFT-GIVING, I HAD THAT EXPERIENCE AND INTEND TO REPLICATE IT BACK HERE AT HOME. JUST YESTERDAY, I WAS SITTING IN A CLIENT’S NEW APARTMENT INSTALLING SOME FIRST-TIER ART FROM THEIR COLLECTION INTO THEIR NEW FLORIDA RESIDENCE. THE ART HANDLER TEAM AND I WERE WAITING FOR THEIR ARRIVAL TO SEE WHAT WE HAD ACCOMPLISHED AND I HAD THE UNEXPECTED GUILTY PLEASURE OF QUIETLY SITTING IN THEIR LIVING ROOM LOOKING THROUGH MONOGRAPHS ON ARTISTS IN THEIR COLLECTION.

THIS IS THE SEASON TO SHARE HOLIDAY SPIRIT AND JOY – AND THE WONDERFUL SENSE OF ENRICHMENT THAT BEAUTIFUL BOOKS AND ART CAN PROVIDE.

NO ONE IS AS DEVOTED AND KNOWLEDGEABLE ABOUT THE WORLD OF BOOKS AS DOUG FLAMM AT URSUS BOOKS, 699 MADISON AVENUE (62nd STREET) IN NEW YORK. ESTABLISHED IN 1972, URSUS PROVIDES AN EXCEPTIONAL SELECTION OF ART REFERENCE BOOKS AS WELL AS RARE BOOKS IN ALL FIELDS AND SERVES CLIENTS IN NEW YORK AND THROUGHOUT THE WORLD OFFERING BOTH NEW AND OUT-OF-PRINT BOOKS INCLUDING CATALOGUE RAISONNES, MONOGRAPHS AND MUSEUM EXHIBITION CATALOGUES. http://www.ursusbooks.com/

HERE ARE A FEW RECOMMENDATIONS FROM DOUG OF CATALOGUES PUBLISHED IN CONJUNCTION WITH RECENT EXHIBITIONS AND EVENTS.

Propeller (Air Pavilion), 1937. Skissernas Museum, Lund, Sweden. © Pracusa 2014083. Photo: Emma Krantz

SONIA DELAUNAY AT THE TATE MODERN IN LONDON: A recent retrospective of Sonia Delaunay, a passionate woman and avant-garde artist who transcended languages, styles, disciplines and borders.

1. Montfort, Anne. SONIA DELAUNAY. 288 pages, including 250 color and b&w plates. wraps. London, Tate Publishing, 2015. (#160780) $49.95

To celebrate the genius of this Ukrainian artist, London’s Tate Modern has organized a retrospective exhibition on view until August 9, 2015, focusing on her prolific production during more than six decades. Born Sara Elievna Stern, in Odessa, Ukraine, at an early age she was sent to St. Petersburg, Russia, to live with her maternal uncle. Under harsh economic distress, her parents couldn’t provide the girl with a proper upbringing at home. She received an excellent education under the tutelage of her adoptive family, and her uncle instilled in her the passion for the visual arts. Over time, the girl—who adopted her mother´s maiden name to become Sonia Terk—would consider herself a Russian artist. In 1906, she settled in Paris, where she joined the intellectual, artistic circles, fraternizing with the likes of Braque, Picasso, Derain, and Vlaminck. Her paintings from that time show an apparent preference for the German expressionists and painters like Van Gogh and Gauguin. 

L) Electric Prisms, 1914. Musée National d’Art Moderne, Paris (RMN). © Pracusa 2014083
(R) Simultaneous Dresses (The three women), 1925. Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid. © Pracusa 2014083.

In 1910, Sonia divorced her first husband to marry Delaunay. Together they created one of the most influential abstract art movements of the early 20th century, called Simultanism. The movement, driven by the couple, claimed color was the expressive paradigm that stops the communicative limitations of the form in favor of contrasting and complementary chromatic expressions. The simultaneous coexistence of sensations created by colors was the fundamental precept of the Delaunays particular styles, which later influenced the poetics of Orphism.

Sonia Delaunay and two friends in Robert Delaunay’s studio, rue des Grands-Augustins, Paris 1924. Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris.

The artist developed her vision—over decades—not only in painting, but also in fashion and custom design, interior and set decoration, magazines covers, and pictorial representations of abstract poems by Blaise Cendrars, among other authors. Between 1915 and 1930, the couple lived in Spain, Portugal, and France. In these countries, Sonia opened shops and ateliers such as Casa Sonia in Madrid (1918), and her boutique at Paris’ Boulevard Malesherbes. Her artistic establishments received great enthusiasm and praise from the aristocracy of Europe’s major capitals. 

WILLIAM KENTRIDGE

William Kentridge
The Lulu Plays

William Kentridge was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 1955. He attended the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg (1973–76), Johannesburg Art Foundation (1976–78), and studied mime and theater at L’École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq, Paris (1981–82). Having witnessed first-hand one of the twentieth century’s most contentious struggles—the dissolution of apartheid—Kentridge brings the ambiguity and subtlety of personal experience to public subjects that are most often framed in narrowly defined terms. Using film, drawing, sculpture, animation, and performance, he transmutes sobering political events into powerful poetic allegories. In a now-signature technique, Kentridge photographs his charcoal drawings and paper collages over time, recording scenes as they evolve. Working without a script or storyboard, he plots out each animated film, preserving every addition and erasure. Aware of myriad ways in which we construct the world by looking, Kentridge uses stereoscopic viewers and creates optical illusions with anamorphic projection, to extend his drawings-in-time into three dimensions.

William Kentridge
The Lulu Plays

Kentridge has had major exhibitions at San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (2009); Philadelphia Museum of Art (2008); Moderna Museet, Stockholm, (2007); and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2004); among others. He has also participated in Prospect.1 New Orleans (2008); the Sydney Biennale (1996, 2008); and Documenta (1997, 2002). His opera and theater works, often produced in collaboration with Handspring Puppet Company, have appeared at Brooklyn Academy of Music (2007); Standard Bank National Arts Festival, Grahamstown, South Africa (1992, 1996, 1998); and Festival d’Avignon, France (1995, 1996). His production of Dmitri Shostakovich’s opera, The Nose, premiered in 2010 at the Metropolitan Opera, New York, in conjunction with a retrospective organized by San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Metropolitan Opera’s LULU

IN NOVEMBER 2015, THE METROPOLITAN OPERA PREMIERED KENTRIDGE’S PRODUCTION OF ALBAN BERG’S OPERA LULU, “A STORY FILLED WITH PSYCHOSEXUAL POLITICS OF GERMAN EXPRESSIONISM”. http://www.wsj.com/articles/lulu-review-william-kentridge-draws-death-and-despair-1447107798

When William Kentridge made his Metropolitan Opera debut with Shostakovich’s “The Nose” in 2010, the piece proved a perfect fit for the South African visual artist’s signature style. That brilliant production was a playful kaleidoscope of film, animated drawings and live action, its tone and spirit celebrating the joyful anarchy of both the wayward body part of the title and the score. Alban Berg’s coruscating 12-tone opera “Lulu,” which opened on Thursday, is a different kind of work, but Mr. Kentridge’s endlessly fertile imagination proved its equal as well, exploring its violent darkness and relentless descent into hell.

William Kentridge
The Lulu Plays

KENTRIDGE, William. The Lulu Plays, by Frank Wedekind. 197 pp. Illustrated with 67 full-page reproductions of drawings by William Kentridge. Folio, bound in publisher’s cloth in matching slipcase, both designed by Kentridge. San Francisco: Arion Press,2015.

$2000.00An exciting new publication from the Arion Press featuring the work of one of today’s most sought-after artists. The text consists of the two plays which are the basis for the libretto of Alban Berg’s Lulu. The Metropolitan Opera will be presenting Kentridge’s production of Lulu which premiers on November 5th. Kentridge worked on the illustrations for the book between 2011 and 2015 and they were made to be used in the Met production by being projected onto the set. As is typical of much of Kentridge’s work there is a strong cinematic influence. Andrew Hoyem has accompanied Kentridge’s illustrations with bold typography in black and red, creating a strikingly modern book while at the same time rendering homage to the works of a century earlier. As new. One of an edition of 400 copies signed by the artist.

William Kentridge
The Lulu Plays

URSUS BOOKS IS HAPPY TO SEARCH FOR BOOKS NOT CURRENTLY IN STOCK AND CREATES CUSTOMIZED LISTS FOR CLIENTS WHO ARE EXPANDING OR BUILDING THEIR COLLECTIONS. DOUG IS A DILIGENT DETECTIVE AND THE RESULTS ARE ALWAYS SPECTACULAR!

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