Sally Steele

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~In the spirit of art for everyone, here are some of the best virtual exhibits to see during these troubling times when we Boulevardiers are strolling virtual boulevards...~

VIRTUAL ART FOR EVERYONE:

MoMA (NYC)

Who was Félix Fénéon? The first exhibition dedicated to this extraordinarily influential but little-known figure explores how he shaped the development of modernism. A French art critic, editor, publisher, dealer, and collector, Fénéon (1861–1944), he was also one of the first European collectors of art from Africa and Oceania. A fervent anarchist during a period of gaping economic and social disparities, Fénéon believed in the potential of avant-garde art to promote a more harmonious, egalitarian world.

He championed some of history’s most beloved artists before they became well known, including Georges Seurat, Paul Signac, Pierre Bonnard, Henri Matisse, and Amedeo Modigliani. He became particularly close with Seurat, Signac, and Matisse and coined the term Neo-Impressionism to describe Seurat’s and Signac’s novel use of bright contrasting colors, and pointillism, a dot-by-dot technique, they used to build their landscapes, portraits, and, occasionally, visions of an anarchist utopia. Just as the vivid touches of paint in these works came together to form a cohesive image, so, too, did Fénéon and these artists unify as intellectual partners and close friends to change art history forever.

Venture out to Moma here: https://www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/5075

~~~

The Broad

Based in Downtown L.A., this contemporary art museum is hoping to engage with viewers at home through socially distanced conversations, poetry and musical experiences. Their hashtag #TheBroadFromHome is a compilation of exciting digital initiatives dedicated to promoting contemporary art and culture during the lockdown period. In particular, the Infinite Drone series presents a new way of experiencing their artwork through immersive videos of light and sound.

Visit The Broad here: https://www.thebroad.org/art

~~~

The British Museum

The British Museum has recently revamped its online collection to accommodate the fast-growing demand for accessible digital content. Visitors to the website can now enjoy nearly 4.5 million objects from over 2 million records. Cutting-edge zoom technology allows viewers to see objects in unprecedented detail and high-definition images can be examined up-close from a range of digital devices. Among other things, the launch has seen 280,000 new object photographs and 85,000 new object records published for the very first time, including recent acquisitions by Damien Hirst and Rossetti.

Delight in The British Museum collection here: https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection

~~~

Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes: Notes on America’ at PACE Gallery

Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes is an online exhibition featuring some of the past century’s most influential photographers and their depictions of American culture at its most challenging and triumphant moments. The show includes works by Richard Avedon, Harry Callahan, William Christenberry, William Eggleston, Robert Frank, Jim Goldberg, Paul Graham, Peter Hujar, Richard Learoyd, Richard Misrach, Trevor Paglen, Gordon Parks, Irving Penn, JoAnn Verburg and Carmen Winant.

Explore the collection online here: https://www.pacegallery.com/viewing-rooms/diamonds-soles-her-shoes/

~~~

Louise Bourgeois Drawings at Hauser & Wirth

Hauser & Wirth’s digital programme ‘Dispatches’ will run throughout spring and summer, bringing you homemade artist videos and interactive conversations, as well as exclusive exhibitions. A highlight is this 1947–2007 collection by the French-American artist Louise Bourgeois, who drew daily throughout her seven-decade career. The show captures her inner psyche through undulating marks in ink, watercolour and pencil.

See the full program here:https://www.vip-hauserwirth.com/louise-bourgeois-works-on-paper/

~~~

The Courtauld Institute of Art

Though closed for major renovations in 2018 (and set to reopen in 2021), the Courtauld Institute of Art has released a visual tour of its collection of iconic works of art. The tour allows you to explore each room of the gallery and zoom in for an intimate view of masterpieces such as Vincent van Gogh’s Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear or Edouard Manet’s A Bar at the Folies-Bergère, taking in the beauty of individual brushstrokes and paint textures.

Explore the gallery here: https://courtauld.ac.uk/gallery/about/3d-gallery-virtual-tour

~~~

Latin America from 1950 to 2020’ at the Stephen Friedman Gallery

Over the past 25 years, the Stephen Friedman Gallery has built a reputation for its commitment to artists from Latin America. This specially curated exhibition features works by celebrated historical and mid-career artists from the region, including Juan Araujo, Tonico Lemos Auad, Manuel Espinosa, Gego, Judith Lauand, Beatriz Milhazes, Rivane Neuenschwander, Mira Schendel and Luiz Zerbini.

See the exhibition here: https://www.stephenfriedman.com/viewing-room/2-latin-america-from-1950-to-2020-a-personal/

~~~

Dale Chihuly at Sims Reed Gallery

Sims Reed Gallery presents 29 original prints and 10 original works on paper by the renowned American artist Dale Chihuly. Best known for his glass installations, Chihuly also made drawing integral to his artistic practice, after losing sight in his left eye in 1976. This exhibition seeks to reveal the synthesis of his two key creative disciplines.

The 3D virtual walking tour is available here: https://my.matterport.com/show/?m=g2mBHz3G2aJ

~~~

Andy Warhol at Tate Modern

Tate shut its galleries just five days after the opening of the first Warhol exhibition at Tate Modern in almost 20 years. Fortunately, the institution is now releasing a series of films offering audiences the chance to discover Warhol from the comfort of their own homes. Promising a new look at the extraordinary life and work of the Pop Art superstar, the retrospective includes works never seen before in the UK.

The curator-led video tour is available now on Tate Modern’s website: https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/exhibition/andy-warhol/exhibition-guide

~~~

An enlightening exhibit at the illustrious Cooper Hewitt Museum, Willi Smith: Street Couture, on Fifth Avenue and 91st Street (the old Frick mansion), focuses on Willi Smith, a ‘streetwear’ designer in the eighties–and a dear friend who fell to AIDS. The exhibit features Smith’s portrait by Boulevardiers Publisher, Kim Steele.  My portrait graces the entrance of the Cooper Hewitt exhibit– modeled after the original site at PS1, where I photographed Smith, for an exhibition titled “Art as Damaged Goods.” The current exhibition is suspended at the moment due to the coronavirus.

~~~

Hudson Yards

Much hoopla has been published about the ‘largest urban development project in US history.’  But it has been predominantly negative. Hudson Yards is overrun with Super stores like Balenciaga and Hermes, and criticism over ‘public space’ [air] waste above the turn around yards from Penn Station.

The Shed’s wheels are forty feet high, that use the tracks to reveal its roof, and cover an expansive outdoor venue for top flight mainstream performances. Within the West Side Rail Yard of 28 acres, designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro with others, The Shed is made of steel, and a translucent Texlon-based polymer, which rolls out to form McCourt Plaza. Co–designer David Rockwell stated, “the mark of a good design is that that it survives reality.” (Credit: Pilar Viladas)   “Meh” – I say.  In a place of white-boxed galleries and glass stores, it is not embracing and certainly not a novel use of urban development-same old stuff.  It’s our contemporaneous Atlantis.

~~~

ICE, photograph by Henry Wessel, courtesy Pace/MacGill Gallery, New York

As a shooter of film for forty years, it has been a struggle to grasp the impact of the digital age and the Internet on of the status of photography in our world.  The act of shooting has become an indulgent, social event.

Henry Wessel, sadly recently deceased in California, was a profound photographer, mentor, professor and thinker on photography, especially on the American West.

“Pressing the shutter is saying yes to the world.’” One of his most poignant quotations which set me back; upon arriving at LAX, he commented on the light intensity, “it looked like you could lean against it.” He was honored by many museum exhibitions from Szarkowski’s at Moma, to Eastman House, to Cologne. He was instrumental in the photo program at the San Francisco Institute, joining its faculty in 1973.

Lee Friedlander called him the “Photo Buddha.” I could mention Walker Evens or Cartier Bresson as his inspiration, but he embarked further into the ordinary terrain of life. This plots a direct collusion with Instagram and Facebook imaging. He was concerned about the proliferation of pictures and it’s deterioration of the import of the photograph.

“People don’t pay much attention these days to the descriptive, expressive and suggestive facts found in a good still photograph.

“The process of photographing is a pleasure: eyes open, receptive, sensing, and at some point connecting. It’s thrilling to be outside your mind, your eyes far ahead of your thoughts.”

That’s picture taking.

I cannot help to be critically drawn to the narcissistic nature of people’s images – selfies, food, pets and fronting famous objects. Nothing to do with image making but all about themselves. Sadly that is our future.

We have celebrated The Boulevardiers raison de’tre for many years now, founded on the French pre-occupation of strolling and window gazing in Paris, and London, and Rome. This Publisher was struck by a newly found term, "Faire du Lèche-Vitrines," which is crudely translated as “window licking.” Now knowing the decorum of the French, I am convinced that they would not apply this term to their promenading in the trendy section, the Marais, of Paris, which is the center of all that is cool, hip and expensive. The original center of Paris, built in the 13th century by the Knights Templar, much has remained, avoiding destruction by City decree in 1964. The Boulevardiers strolled through this section last summer on the way to L’Orangrie and gazed covetously at the many shops, bakeries and patisseries... and could very well appreciate this phrase.

~~~

Guest Musing from The Boulevardiers "Muse" Sally Steele:

Never let it be said that the Boulevardiers don't celebrate all who wander in search of inspiration, or in daily observation. A recently published book, The Flâneuse, is a lively tome focusing on the French flâneuse, the feminine of flâneur: defined as a woman who is or who behaves like a flaneur; who is defined as an idle man-about-town.

Author Lauren Elkin: "The portraits I paint here attest that the flâneuse is not merely a female flâneur, but a figure to be reckoned with, and inspired by, all on her own…She is a determined, resourceful individual keenly attuned to the creative potential of the city, and the liberating possibilities of a good walk."

For some time, I have been lamenting whilst walking my town, enviously observing the abundance of hipster bistros and coffee bars populated all day and into the evening by those lucky enough to grab the time to simply sit and watch the world go by. But how oh so boring that would be!

Recently perusing the tales of Diego, the sire of Galapagos tortoises, I smiled having "met" Diego in the Galapagos several years ago. And when reading about the rich arts scene in Milan, funded mostly via the largesse of the fashion houses, my head was full of images of days spent wandering there, not so long ago. As I poured over my travel photos I saw Los Angeles, Lima, and Santiago; New York, Maui and Athens; Venice, Istanbul, and Marseilles; Cannes, Sydney, and Tokyo, and so many more. I walked for miles in for London, from my favorite museum, The V&A, to Harrod's, to the trendy parts of town with all the big name galleries. Ditto for New York. And Rome, major renovations to ancient and Renaissance sites currently underway, again due to the largesse of the world's fashion leaders. And oh, Paris, strolling in the Tuileries in the drizzle after a glorious morning spent at l'Orangerie. Then there were some standout strolls on La Croisette amidst the excitement of the awards season. I live a fanciful life!

I'm lucky enough to be partner to the ultimate flâneur, who has so graciously guided me into becoming a full-fledged flâneuse.

Here's to women everywhere, and to living a life that takes the good walk, and turns it into the truly great walk.

~~~

The raking light of fall brings out the Flaneur in me, the season of Flanerie. Elaine Sciolino reminds us of the first establishment of this pastime in literature, “Tableau de Paris,” a twelve volume set of observations the gestalt the of ‘street’ in Paris. Half a century later, this sites’ figurehead, Charles Baudelaire, demarked the ‘wander-spectator’ activity as flaneur. “The crowd is his habitat, as is air for the bird or water for the fish” he quoted.

This activity is so important to the French, that Hermes created a pop-up museum on the left bank to honor its significance. The artistic director of the project, Pierre-Alexis Dumas also created an illustrated book on the subject. It’s a small single room structure with four window displays, including from the collection of a past president, Emile Hermes.

To observe yes, to interact no. The sounds, the smells and the visual jewels glistening in the shop windows- draws us to the streets of Paris, or London or our favorite ville, Roma. And of course, the most animated of them all – the people who stroll and sit and observe in the cafes, not the harried New Yorkers who are irritated by strollers in their path. Years ago, I proposed a story for Life Magazine, on the important promenades of the world, but to no avail. Sadly, it is not an American occupation.

~~~

On every trip to NY, I visit one of my favorite urban spaces, The Grand Central Oyster Bar. Between my passion for oysters and my adoration for Guastavino's tile craft, this is my ideal spot. We traveled to 103rd Street this last trip to enjoy a beautifully illustrated and informative exhibition at The Museum of New York, of his sumptuous tilework throughout New York employed by McKim, Mead and White, and NY City (including the recently uncovered bottom to the Queensborough Bridge, now a Farmer's Market).

Guastavino tile is the "Tile Arch System" patented in the United States in 1885 by Valencian (Spanish) architect and builder Rafael Guastavino (1842–1908). Guastavino vaulting is a technique for constructing robust, self-supporting arches and architectural vaults using interlocking terracotta tiles and layers of mortar to form a thin skin, with the tiles following the curve of the roof as opposed to horizontally (corbelling), or perpendicular to the curve (as in Roman vaulting). This is known as timbrel vaulting, because of supposed likeness to the skin of a timbrel or tambourine. It is also called "Catalan vaulting" and "compression-only thin-tile vaulting".

Guastavino tile is found in some of New York’s most prominent Beaux-Arts landmarks and in major buildings across the United States.

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