Philly on the Fourth
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We leave for Philadelphia on Wednesday for the rest of the week, therefore I probably won’t be blogging after tomorrow. But after all, it’s Fourth of July week and it’s already looking like things are slow around the web, so my absence will likely go largely unnoticed.
There will be lots of walking around downtown, a Segway tour, and hopefully I’ll get to duck inside a few galleries. There won’t be a famous Philly Cheesesteak in my future this time, since I’m not eating meat. Can you imagine a “Cheesesteak-and-hold-the-steak?”
Today and tomorrow I have an insane amount to do before we pack, still tying up loose ends on projects. Still working on my son’s four panels. Today is his birthday, which I didn’t mention before. The panels are a present! But it’s OK that I’m telling you, because I already told him, even though they’re not finished. They are requiring lots of drying time between paint applications.
Tonight Dina, second mom to my kids and pets, will be over for dinner and to get checked out on where everything is for the furry kids. She’ll be staying with them while we’re gone, and I can tell you they are plenty excited! But I do feel for them and for Dina because of the fireworks all over the place at all hours. It’s always a traumatic time for the animals.
SFMOMA’s two Sarah Steins
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For as long as I can remember, the first gallery of SFMOMA’s permanent collection has featured Henri Matisse’s 1916 portraits of Sarah and Michael Stein. Not now: Michael has been replaced with a second ‘Sarah,’ this one in graphite. If you’re in San Francisco it’s a must-see hanging.
The painting and the sketch are clearly related and are still strikingly different. The painting is softer, the drawing is more precise. The painting is mysterious, the drawing is direct. The painting is full of questions: Why are Sarah Stein’s arms in the air — or is she lying down? Why does her hair = earmuffs? No matter, it works.
Meanwhile, the drawing is the best kind of puzzle. Yes, it is a study for the portrait, but it is hardly warm enough to be a traditional study for a commission from a devoted supporter. Instead Matisse uses the sketch as a transitional exercise, a conscious scrubbing of recent practice. It’s a preparatory sketch — but for the artist himself and not for the painting he would make. In many ways the two Sarah Steins mark the end of Matisse’s cubist period and his transition to what was next.
Between 1914 and the Portrait of Sarah Stein, Matisse painted masterpiece after masterpiece. In a two year period and more or less in chronological order, Matisse painted: View of Notre Dame, French Window at Collioure, Goldfish and Palette, White and Pink Head (the portrait of his daughter Marguerite at right, to which we shall return soon), Still Life after Jan Davidsz. de Heem’s ‘La Desserte,’ Gourds, and Piano Lesson. In the fall of 1916, perhaps spurred on by the first public exhibition of Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon in July 1916, Matisse finished his two most ambitious cubist paintings: The Moroccans and Bathers by a River. It was a remarkable two-year burst.
At the end of that period came SFMOMA’s two Sarah Steins. They represent two-thirds of a dramatic turning point in Matisse’s
oeuvre. Before them: Cubism. After them Matisse would complete his transition away from cubism by making one last barely cubist portrait of a new model, Lorette. After that, Matisse gave up cubism for good. He would go on to make many non-cubist portraits of Lorette, followed by the Nice period. But first, the drawing… which I’ll discuss tomorrow.
Related: I can’t mention a Matisse portrait without steering you toward John Klein’s fantastic, must-own book about Matisse’s portraits.
Weekend roundup
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I’m back home, so posting will return to normal. MAN will feature several significant stories this week, so be sure to check back often.
- In the LAT, Holly Myers explains why Steve Roden is an artist’s artist. Roden at Vielmetter was the best show of new work I saw in LA last week. That’s the same sun spinning and fading… (2008) at right.
- This is a little bit out of date because I was traveling, but this story from the Chicago Tribune is troubling for about umpteen reasons. In short, an art exhibition at Chicago’s only Jewish museum was closed because some donors thought it was anti-Israel. The story then goes on to describe a couple works… but names no artists and provides no context for their work. Lameness of the story aside, I’m kind of amazed it took me 10 days to hear about this. (The Chicago Tribune’s website is a typical Tribune Co. disaster, so I’m not surprised didn’t see the story.) Here’s the show’s website. It makes no mention of the unexpected closure of the show. Artists in the show included Michal Rovner, Shirley Shor and Mona Hatoum. The show’s catalogue was published by the museum, and is ‘temporarily unavailable’ from Amazon.
- Walker Art Center director Olga Viso takes an apparent shot at the Minneapolis Star Tribune’s coverage of the museum and (to its credit) the paper runs it: ” ‘This is a wider issue that museums have been grappling with for
several years,’ said the Walker’s Olga Viso. ‘As institutions, we’ve
been looked at in limited ways — finances, attendance — rather than
at the qualitative things.’ “ - All I’m going to tell you about this Doug Harvey LA Weekly review is that it features this sentence about Robert Rauschenberg: “[H]e was a dyslexic homosexual drunkard –all top-shelf people in my chest of drawers.” It’s Doug Harvey. He doesn’t write nearly often enough. So when he does (about a big photo show at the Huntington, yes the Huntington), you shouldn’t miss it.
- Jen Graves kicks it with an 83-year-old man wearing a US Marines ‘Fort Badass’ hat at an Oliver Herring ‘Task’ event.
- Geoff Edgers says that the MFA Boston has reached its $500M fundraising goal.
- Steven Litt and the Cleveland Plain Dealer have a story-stuffed section on the re-opening of the Cleveland Museum of Art’s reopening its original 1916 galleries after a three-year renovation. Even in a Flash player the light in the galleries looks tremendous.
- Ed Sozanksi takes to the Philly Inquirer to praise the Friends of the Barnes.
Sunday Secrets
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PostSecret is an ongoing community art project where people
mail in their secrets anonymously on one side of a postcard.
1(800)SUICIDE needs your help. You can become a friend to Hopeline by posting this video on your website/Blog. I will be linking to friends in my Blogroll. Thank you for supporting the National Suicide Prevention Hotline.
Help spread this campaign by using this button.
a2a_linkname=”Hopeline - 1.800.SUICIDE”;a2a_linkurl=”http://www.hopeline.com/”;a2a_show_title=1;
—–Email Message——
Subject: thank you
Frank,
This past Friday night I found myself in a black hole of depression and I didn’t know how I was going to make it through the night. Not knowing where to turn and feeling like I couldn’t stop. I remembered seeing the Hopeline phone number in the front of your book. I talked with someone there for 2 and a half hours and I truly feel that they saved my life.
Thank you for the book, thank Hopeline for being there, and thank the people that send in their postcards so that others know they are not alone with their secrets.
-Casie (with permission)
Going Green Without Even Trying
Comments OffYesterday I had a moment of self-discovery about the way I live and how it conflicts with the way I want to live. I haven’t yet managed to banish bottled water from the house, though I’m working on it. I have parked the car in the driveway for more whole days at a time, and am consolidating any and all trips. We buy as much produce as we can from the local farmer’s market. I haven’t yet bought a bicycle, but am seriously looking into it. And I’m working out more ideas for doing art that doesn’t harm the planet.
But back to yesterday’s story. Because of three dogs and two cats who constantly shed their hair all around and, in addition, track dirt in and out from their multiple daily trips outside, I had decided I needed a new, updated, high-tech, lightweight, and super-efficient handy dandy cleaning tool. A friend had gone on and on over dinner, extolling the virtues of a popular stick vacuum with dual dry/wet capabilities, and how it was her new “little friend” that she uses a half dozen times a day.
So I’d been thinking about that little gadget for over a month, until yesterday when I decided I had to have it. I looked online at popular stores who carry that item, trying to see where I could order it for the best deal. I also saw that they all carry it in their stores. In a weak moment, I decided I had to have it and have it now.
So we got in the car and headed out to the nearest big box store. No luck. Down the block and across the street to the next one: Nope, not there either. Our plan was also to grab a nice lunch together during our shopping outing, which we also did, and then resumed our hunt. We stopped again to do another quick errand, then to yet another store looking for that cute little vacuum. Not a one in sight. So I said very loudly “I’ll just order the damned thing online, which was what I almost did anyway.”
On the way home I realized I had already caused us to spend the shipping money on gas, which I had originally hoped to save by buying it locally. Later in the day, as I stood there and pumped almost eighty dollars worth of gas, I thought long and hard about that new, updated, high-tech, lightweight, and super-efficient handy dandy cleaning tool.
I came home and hauled out my old, worn-but-trusty broom, dust pan and dust mop and looked at them with a little more respect than before. Since most of my house is ceramic tile, I can clean the whole place with just those three pieces of equipment, primitive and uncool as they may be. So that’s what I did. It felt great to go low-tech to accomplish a job that isn’t any more fun even with power tools anyway.
The benefits:
I get just a tad more exercise
I get to feel self-righteous
I’ve saved maybe fifty bucks
Time’s up, Mom: Here is my darling Reno this morning, who wants to go for her walk in the woods. When she can no longer wait for me to finish surfing and blogging, this is the look I get.
Hope you’re having a wonderful Sunday.
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