December 13, 2009
Neil Leifer, "Muhammed Ali vs. Sonny Liston, St Dominics Arena, Lewiston, ME, May 25, 1965."
by Caroline Newman
For those who are interested in both sports and photography this is the show to see! Currently on display at The Annenberg Space for Photography is the exhibit “Sport” containing photographic works from Walter Iooss and Neil Leifer. Both Iooss and Leifer propel the genre of sports photography into a whole new realm with this show. Iooss’ images isolate the figure so it becomes more about the movement and form of an individual rather than who the person is. Leifer contextualizes his subjects making his photographs more about an isolated moment in time and the feelings contained within that moment.
Neil Leifer, "Yogi Berra, 1960 World Series, New York Yankees vs. Pittsburgh Pirates, Forbes Field, Pittsburgh, PA, October 1960."
Walter Iooss is well known for his portraits of famous athletes such as Michael Jordan and Mohammed Ali. Seeing these images along with many others in the show enables the viewer to focus on aspects of shape and movement that may not have been apparent when viewing just one of Iooss’ images. Many of his subjects are placed against minimal backgrounds causing most of the detail to be found within the figures. Images like Michelle Kwan ice-skating through the air and Tiger Woods getting ready to swing a gold club are so powerful in the figures themselves that the background is barely noticeable. Iooss’ images of athletes transcend sports photography and become a masterful study of form and beauty. Keep reading →
Filed under Los Angeles, celebs, contemporary art, photography, reviews
Tags: Annenberg Space for Photography, Michael Jordan, Michelle Kwan, Mohammed Ali, Neil Leifer, sports photography, Tiger Woods, Walter Iooss
December 9, 2009
A Happening: "Fluids" 1967/2008, LACMA, Los Angeles CA
“Happenings” are an avant-garde new media art form started in the U.S. in the 1960’s that privilege time and audience participation. Known for being random, loosely structured, and containing elements of the unexpected and even improvisational, Happenings include the performing artist’(s’) sounds, gestures, and movements and are unique in that they cannot be exactly reproduced and can only be documented through video or photography after the fact. No two happenings can ever be the same because they are live and spontaneous, although some elements may be predetermined. Keep reading →
December 8, 2009
Filed under Los Angeles, Miami, New York, art fairs, art market, celebs, collecting, contemporary art, dealers, museums, party pics
Tags: Alitalia, Art Basel, Art Basel Miami Beach, art party pics, David Hockney, Getty, LACMA, MIchael Govan, MoMa, party, Peter Zumthor, Pulse Miami, Rembrandt, Richard Wright, Turner Prize
December 1, 2009
Jeff Koons' "Waterfall Couple (Dots) Brown Swirl." Image via The Los Angeles Times.
Jeff Koons: New Paintings at Gagosian Gallery in Beverly Hills features ten oil on canvas paintings that breath new life into Koons’ tradition of questioning taste, banality, sexuality, and consumerism. The multilayered paintings are either 9 x 12 feet or 9 x 7 feet and the dominant colors are graffiti tinged silver, verdant green, and fleshy almost scatological browns, reds, and beiges. There are nods to Cy Twombly’s blobs of color, Roy Lichtenstein’s dots, and the porno themed backgrounds and depth of field suggest Gustave Courbet’s graphic L’Origine du Monde.
Critic David Pagel compared Koons’ oeuvre to the work of Andy Warhol in The Los Angeles Times Culture Monster blog:
“If Warhol is the father of Pop Art, Koons is a chip off the old block, an unparalleled imitator whose imitations are so cockeyed and corny that they come off as originals, weird as that is… The crass aspirations of the nouveau riche are Koons’ great subject. His oeuvre is the visual equivalent of a 19th century novel of manners. If that’s boring, it’s exactly the type of boredom that fascinated Andy.”
But the paintings are supposed to be “boring” as an artistic device for social commentary, much the same way Andy Warhol exposed a different generation’s obsession with pop culture, Koons sometimes cheesy creations bring forth the shortcomings of our own superficial society. Keep reading →
December 1, 2009
Wednesday, December 2 at 7pm: Andrew Holder lecture: Drop It Like It’s Fake: Architecture and the Necessity of Faux Science
Thursday, December 3 at 7pm: MediaSCAPES & Center For Visual Music present an evening of Immersive & Expanded Cinema of Visual Music
Wednesday, December 9 at 7pm: Eric Owen Moss Construction Manual, 1988-2008: Conversation with Eric Owen Moss and Frances Anderton followed by a book signing and reception
SCI-Arc, the Southern California Institute of Architecture, is open to the public daily, 960 East 3rd Street, Los Angeles, CA 90013. All of the above lectures are held in the W.M. Keck Lecture Hall.
November 30, 2009
Filed under Asian Art, Los Angeles, Miami, Paris, auctions, collecting, contemporary art, museums, old masters, party pics
Tags: Art Basel, art charity, artists, Chinese paintings, French unions, Getty Museum, Hong Kong, Honor Fraser Gallery, Miami Beach, Museum of Modern Art, Paris museums, parties, party pics, recession, Rembrandt, Russia Week, Tim Burton, Tomoo Gokita
November 20, 2009
"La Jeu de la Palette," 1766, Jean-Claude-Richard de Saint-Non, after Jean-Honoré Fragonard. Aquatint printed in brown ink. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
An aquatint is a type of etching that mimics the appearance of watercolor and ink washes through the use of a tone process. The technique is used to create shaded areas that range from light to dark and is most common in landscapes, portraits, and figure studies to give a sense of depth and realism.
The aquatint technique uses acid to penetrate a surface that is partially protected by a porous copper or zinc plate. The plate is covered with a thin layer of powdered resin and the acid bites a grouping of tiny lines around each resin grain, which then hold enough ink when printed to look like a wash. Keep reading →
November 18, 2009
by Emily Waldorf
The characters in Jane Austen’s brilliant novels inhabit your imagination indefinitely once you have had the pleasure of reading about their hopes and desires. Who hasn’t encountered an overly passionate Marianne Dashwood or dashing but unreliable John Willoughby? Austen’s genius talent for social satire, despite being firmly planted in the world of 19th century England, is what still draws readers and audiences to her work today.
But who is Jane Austen? If you are a real Jane Austen nut, you have probably already read Claire Tomalin’s well researched book about the notoriously elusive author, Jane Austen: A Life. And now you can view the Morgan Library’s first Austen show in more than twenty five years, “A Woman’s Wit: Jane Austen’s Life and Legacy,” curated by Declan Kiely and Clara Drummond.
The Morgan Library enjoys the largest collection in the world of Jane Austen memorabilia. The exhibition includes many rare early editions, a revealing collection of letters written to her sister Cassandra and her niece Fannie Knight, and the Lady Susan manuscript, the only surviving complete draft of any of her novels. Apparently, Austen wrote more than 3,000 letters in her lifetime and only 160 survive. Most of the letters were destroyed after her death by her sister in order to preserve the family’s reputation. This can be seen in the exhibition through letters that have been censored with whole sections cut out. Keep reading →
Filed under New York, books, education, film, museums
Tags: "A Woman's Wit", Claire Tomalin, Jane Austen, Jane Austen: A Life, Morgan Library, New York, Pride & Prejudice, Reflections on Austen, Sense & Sensibility, The Divine Jane
November 17, 2009
Filed under Los Angeles, Paris, auctions, collecting, contemporary art, galleries, museums, party pics, photography, sculpture
Tags: art party pics, Eli Broad, First Thirty Years, Giacometti, L'Homme qui chavire, MET, MOCA, Paris, review, Robert Frank, Smithson, Spiral Jetty, Sterling Ruby, YSL, Yves Saint Laurent
November 16, 2009
Urs Fischer's "Service à la Française,” a 51-piece installation on the second floor. Image via The New York Times.
by Emily Waldorf
Swiss-born, New York-based artist Urs Fischer’s current show, Urs Fischer: Margeurite de Ponty, at the New Museum features installations and constructed environments from the past two years that span three floors, which is almost the entire museum. Walking through Fischer’s show is like stepping into Alice’s Wonderland or a Surrealist painting that has morphed into a three dimensional fun house.
The second floor of the museum features an installation,”Service à la Française,” comprised of a forest of over 25,000 photographs and over twelve tons of steel taking the form of chrome boxes of all shapes and sizes, completely immersing the viewer in an alternate reality. The silkscreened images covering the boxes include a pink and a blue glass of champagne, a doughnut, an eclair, designer shoes, a box of matches, a lighter, a pop star, and many more uncanny pairings that create a dizzying dialogue.
The third floor is a site specific trompe l’oeil environment in which Fischer has painstakingly photographed and reprinted the entirety of the museum’s architecture. There is also a cartoonish sculpture of a violet piano that appears to be melting at the center of the gallery. Keep reading →
