Sally Steele

7, Adulthood Group IV by Hilma af Klint

On a recent trip to New York, as is my pattern, I combed over every major museum from Brooklyn to the Guggenheim and those in between, as well as many galleries.  On the insistence of several artist friends, I spent the morning viewing Hilma af Klimt’s paintings at the Guggenheim.

I was enraptured with her turn of the last century’s work, precursing the know figures of Modernism-Kandinsky, Malevich and Mondrian.  A relatively unknown (to the world, but not in her native Sweden) artist with a definite spiritual bent, complete with séances and mystical writings.  But most importantly were the bold paintings of shapes and patterns that are very contemporary and defy definition. They are truly innovative and fresh; they remained with me for days afterward.  I highly recommend the show. As Roberta Smith noted in the Times, “a rapturous exhibition.” The best show I saw. Until April 23rd.

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.

MANET AND MODERN BEAUTY

May 26, 2019 – September 8, 2019, at Art Institute Chicago

The first Art Institute exhibition devoted exclusively to Édouard Manet in over 50 years focuses on the transformation of the artist’s style in his later years.

By the late 1870s, when this exhibition begins, Édouard Manet had become recognized as a painter of modern life. He had long looked to historical subjects and style for inspiration but in the 1870s grew more and more immersed in the now—eventually proposing a radical new alignment of modern art with fashionable femininity. While he continued to pursue highly finished, heroically scaled paintings intended for the Salon throughout these later years (a time also marked by health problems and limited mobility), he simultaneously approached smaller works more fluidly and spontaneously, taking up pastel and watercolor while unapologetically embracing beauty and visual pleasure.

This exhibition is the first to focus on this important period in the artist's career, bringing together an impressive array of portraits of fashionable women—favorite actresses and models, bourgeois women of his acquaintance, and his wife—as well as intimate male friends. Among these are two striking paintings, one of the young model-actress Jeanne Demarsy and the other of his friend Méry Laurent. Called Jeanne (Spring) and Autumn (Portrait of Méry Laurent), the pair comprises the only two completed works in a project to portray the seasons through paintings of stylishly attired women.

Supplementing this display are the delicate and rarely seen letters Manet wrote to his friends, featuring exquisite illustrations of fruits and flowers; garden pictures, which themselves often feature elegantly attired women; and flower studies, consummate expressions of Manet’s favorite subjects at the end of his life. Punctuating the presentation are large-scale multifigure paintings, including In the Conservatory and Boating, both shown in the 1879 Salon, which focus attention on modern social and gender relations. Together these works showcase both Manet’s responsiveness to the moment and the continual flowering of his artistry.

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BLACK MODELS: from Géricault to Matisse

March 26, 2019 – July 21, 2019 at Musée d'Orsay

Taking a multi-disciplinary approach that combines the history of art and the history of ideas, this exhibition explores aesthetic, political, social and racial issues as well as the imagery unveiled by the representation of black figures in visual arts, from the abolition of slavery in France (1794) to the modern day. Designed to provide a long-term perspective, the exhibition looks more particularly at three key periods: the era of abolition (1794-1848), the new painting era up to the Matisse’s discovery of the Harlem Renaissance and the early 20th century avant-garde movement and the successive generations of post-war and contemporary artists.

The exhibition primarily focuses on the question of models, and therefore the dialogue between the artist who paints, sculpts, engraves or photographs and the model who poses. It notably explores the way in which the representation of black subjects in major works by Théodore Géricault, Charles Cordier, Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux, Edouard Manet, Paul Cézanne and Henri Matisse, as well as the photographs of Nadar and Carjat, evolved.

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HANS HOFFMAN: The Nature of Abstraction

February 27, 2019 – July 21, 2019, at Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, California

It’s impossible to imagine a history of American abstract art in the postwar era without Hofmann, who taught many budding New York painters of the time—including Helen Frankenthaler and Lee Krasner—in the ways of color theory and modernist styles. Hofmann’s work, with its juxtaposed swatches of opposing colors and uneven textures, is lesser known than that of his students, so this show will bring together nearly 70 works to spotlight how he translated European techniques for American audiences.

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“THE JEWELED ISLE: Art from Sri Lanka”

December 9, 2018 – June 23, 2019, at LACMA

The first comprehensive survey of Sri Lankan art organized by an American museum, The Jeweled Isle: Art from Sri Lanka presents some 240 works addressing nearly two millennia of Sri Lankan history. The image of a bejeweled isle, first invoked in Greco-Roman accounts of Sri Lanka’s precious gems, inspired numerous literary descriptions of the island’s wealth and tropical beauty. The Jeweled Isle includes precious decorative objects fashioned from gold, silver, and ivory, and 19th-century photographs documenting Sri Lanka’s extraordinary monuments, scenery, and flora. Several artworks convey the importance of sacred sites and relics in Sri Lankan Buddhist practice, while rare images of Hindu gods attest to the long and constant interaction between Sri Lanka and South India. Exquisite ivories, textiles, and furnishings further reflect nearly four centuries of European colonial presence in Sri Lanka and the dynamic interaction between local and foreign visual traditions. Featuring LACMA’s rarely displayed collection of Sri Lankan art—one of the finest and most extensive in the U.S.—the exhibition presents a timely exploration and celebration of a geographically complex, ethnically diverse, and multicultural South Asian hub.

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SEBASTIO SALGADO: Genesis

November 16, 2018 – June 23, 2019, at Museum für Gestaltung Zürich

Glaciers, densely populated by seals, endless Sahara dunes or mist-covered mountains in the Amazon rainforest: Sebastião Salgado depicts the earth as a creation of overwhelming beauty and thus sharpens our awareness of its preciousness. On over 30 journeys to all corners of the world, the French-Brazilian has created a photographic essay that simultaneously documents the majesty and the vulnerability of our environment. Salgado has sailed across oceans, scaled mountains, and crossed deserts. He has observed animals and met indigenous peoples in his endeavor to capture their environment and culture. The exhibition is a dramatic manifesto that not only touches visitors with its opulent black-and-white photographs, but also raises open questions about how we deal with the planet.

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CONSTANTIN BRANCUSI: Sculpture

July 22, 2018 – June 15, 2019, at Museum of Modern Art, NY

Looking back at the first showing of Constantin Brancusi's work (1876–1957) in the United States, in the 1913 Armory Show, one writer reflected that sculptures on view were “disturbing, so disturbing indeed that they completely altered the attitude of a great many New Yorkers towards a whole branch of art.” Indeed, Brancusi’s beguilingly simple forms looked like nothing else, then or since.

Rather than modeling clay like his peers, Brancusi carved his work directly from wood or stone, or cast it in bronze. Simultaneously, he rejected realism, preferring that his sculptures evoke rather than resemble the subjects named in their titles. Brancusi made bases for many of his sculptures, themselves complex constructions that became part of the work. He often moved works from base to base, or placed them directly on the floor of his studio, so that they lived in the world alongside ordinary objects, and among people.

Born in rural Romania, Brancusi moved to Paris in 1904, where he established his studio and quickly immersed himself in avant-garde art circles. In his adopted city, he embraced an experimental modern spirit, including an interest in modern machines and popular culture. With his friend Man Ray, he made films that captured his life in the studio—working with his materials and muses, activating his artworks through movement and recombination, and revealing his sources of inspiration such as animals at play, light in nature, and dance. Yet until his death he proudly presented himself as an outsider—cultivating his image as a peasant, with a long beard, work shirt, and sandals. The contradiction also informs his art making, which was dependent on ancient techniques as much as contemporary technologies.

This exhibition celebrates MoMA’s extraordinary holdings—11 sculptures by Brancusi will be shown together for the first time, alongside drawings, photographs, and films. A selection of never-before-seen archival materials shed light on his relationships with friends, sitters, and patrons, including this Museum. What emerges is a rich portrait of an artist whose risk-taking and inventive approach to form changed the course of the art that followed.

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RAUSCHENBERG: The 1/4 Mile

October 28, 2018 – June 9, 2019, at LACMA

One of the most pioneering artists of the last century, Robert Rauschenberg (1925–2008) produced a diverse body of work characterized by experimentation, the use of varied mediums and methods, and cross-cultural exchange. Rauschenberg’s monumental The 1/4 Mile or 2 Furlong Piece (1981–98) exemplifies these tenets of his artistic practice. Created over 17 years, the work is composed of 190 panels that, combined, measure approximately a quarter mile in length. An eclectic array of materials comprise the piece: textiles, mass media images, and photographs by the artist intermingle with bold passages of paint, while everyday objects such as chairs, cardboard boxes, and traffic lights add sculptural depth. Rauschenberg incorporated materials and photographs from the U.S., Asia, Europe, Latin America, and Northern Africa, including audio of ambient street sounds recorded during his travels.

The 1/4 Mile reveals the broad scope of Rauschenberg’s practice through the multitude of mediums and techniques employed, and serves as a self-contained retrospective of his oeuvre. This presentation is the first time The 1/4 Mile or 2 Furlong Piece will be exhibited in its entirety.

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FRIDA KHALO: Appearances Can Be Deceiving

February 8, 2019 – May 12, 2019, at Brooklyn Museum. NY

In 2014, curator Julie Rodrigues Widholm told ARTnews that Kahlo has “been so overshadowed by her celebrity that her work has become lost.” Could this be the exhibition that finally saves the Mexican Surrealist painter from her own celebrity? For what is being billed as the largest Kahlo show in America in a decade, the Brooklyn Museum will home in on how the artist carefully crafted her identity. The show will include her clothes, personal possessions, and examples of contemporaneous films and propaganda, as well as works from the museum’s Mesoamerican holdings. If the show’s title is any proof, it will shed light on never-before-seen aspects of Kahlo, whose work frequently dealt with the complexities of being a female artist in the first half of the 20th century.

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THE C C Land EXHIBITION: Pierre Bonnard. The Colour Of Memory

January 23 – May 6, 2019, at TATE Modern, London

This is the first major exhibition of Pierre Bonnard’s work in the UK since the much-loved show at Tate 20 years ago. It will allow new generations to discover Bonnard’s unconventional use of colour, while surprising those who think they already know him.

Born 1867, Bonnard was, with Henri Matisse, one of the greatest colourists of the early 20th century. He preferred to work from memory, imaginatively capturing the spirit of a moment and expressing it through his unique handling of colour and innovative sense of composition.

The exhibition concentrates on Bonnard’s work from 1912, when colour became a dominant concern, until his death in 1947. It presents landscapes and intimate domestic scenes which capture moments in time – where someone has just left the room, a meal has just finished, a moment lost in the view from the window, or a stolen look at a partner.

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VICTOR VASARELY: The Sharing of Form

February 6, 2019 – May 6, 2019, at Centre Pompidou, Paris

While the name Vasarely evokes colourful images playing with optic illusion, the whole scope and logic of this artist’s work remains little known more than twenty years after his death. The last major Parisian exhibition devoted to the artist dates back to 1963 at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs. This new retrospective at the Centre Pompidou explores his work from all its facets, rather than focusing only on the aspects which would conform to the popular concept of Great Art. Through an outstanding collection of nearly eighty paintings, an architectural integration and a wide selection of multiples, discover a work which rose, like the DS or Pierre Paulin’s armchairs, to the status of the great technical and cultural mythologies of its time.
This exhibition reveals Vasarely’s ‘software’, which holds a dual dimension. As the heir of the historical avant-gardists of the early half of the 20th century, in particular Bauhaus, Victor Vasarely launched into a radical undertaking to secularise art. In other words, he was committed to defining ways of designing and producing which would enable widespread social distribution of art. At the same time, and this is the other major aspect of his work, Vasarely developed forms which caught the eye to a further degree than abstract painting in general and thus marked history as the inventor of kinetic art.

Vasarely studied in Budapest alongside the historical avant-gardists. His master, Sandor Bortnyik, was one of the major figures of Hungarian modernism. The first section of the exhibition reveals a Vasarely adapting the language of modernism to advertising and laying the foundations, in the 1930s and through his advertising works and various studies, of his creations to come. The Zèbres series is a striking precedent to the optical-kinetic forms which were to emerge two decades later.

At the dawn of the 1960s, Vasarely opened the way for what he called the ‘plastic alphabet’, consisting of a lexicon of six simple geometric forms embedded in squares of pure colour, the ‘plastic units’. Reviving one of the founding dreams of abstraction, his ambition was to create a visual language of universal reach and thus offer global society the means to generate a new ‘planetary folklore’. The set of shapes and colours offered a practically infinite number of combinations with multiple applications. Vasarely mastered their control through permutation and programming methods which reflected his interest in cybernetics and lent his paintings a foretaste of the digitalisation to come. In the second half of the 1960s, the pure hues of the ‘plastic alphabet’ were enriched with intermediate values which introduced colour gradients and chiaroscuro into the mosaic of paintings and formed the basis of some of the artist’s most emblematic works.

Cosmic dreams, between science and fiction, were the subject of Vasarely's last explorations in form. It was a radiant, airy and multi-dimensional cosmos which inspired the major series of the 1960s and 1970s. Their titles bear witness to this, with references to ‘signals from other worlds’, to ‘meta-galaxies’ or the ‘sound of quasars’ and the ‘beat of pulsars’. In 1982, the French astronaut Jean-Loup Chrétien even took a series of five prints by the artist on board the Soviet space station Salyut 7, thus achieving the interstellar ambition of Vasarely’s work. This was the ultimate way to link the two major focus points of his work: space exploration, or the positivity of science in its most exemplary expression, and his love of distortions, geometric and optical eccentricities which abound in the world of science fiction.

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THE ESSENTIAL DUCHAMP

December 22, 2018 – April 7, 2019, National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul

The exhibition will offer a chronological account of Duchamp’s life and art. The first section explores the period from 1902 through 1912, when he experimented with different avant-garde styles ranging from Impressionism to Symbolism and Fauvism. It concludes with his highly original engagement with Cubism and his life-changing decision at the age of twenty-five to abandon the painter’s craft and seek new ways of working.

The second section examines the crucial interval between 1912 and 1917, when Duchamp pushed past the boundaries of painting as conventionally understood. It was during these years that he generated the ideas for his magnum opus, The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even (also known as The Large Glass) (1915-23), and then embarked upon its construction after moving to New York. At the same time, Duchamp also created the first of his so-called readymades. Functional objects, such as his infamous sculpture Fountain (1917), were divorced from their utilitarian purpose and designated—as opposed to made—by Duchamp as works of art.

The third section follows Duchamp in Paris during the decades of the 1920s and 1930s, then back to New York as an émigré during World War II. Early in this period, he resolved to shift his vocation from art to chess, and went on to pursue chess with the commitment of a professional. At the same time, Duchamp invented a female persona named Rrose Sélavy and used this identity to pursue new projects.

The last section explores the remaining decades of his life when Duchamp achieved legendary status in the art world. It reflects upon themes that had long preoccupied Duchamp, including the erotic as a doctrine, and the aesthetics of realism and illusion. The exhibition concludes with materials illuminating the production of his final work, a three-dimensional construction built around a life-sized mannequin of a female nude, Étant donnés. He created it in near-total secrecy in his New York studio between 1946 and 1966.

Matthew Affron, the Muriel and Philip Berman Curator of Modern Art and curator of this exhibition, from the show's organizing museum, Philadelphia Museum of Art, stated: “Duchamp once slyly remarked that the Nude Descending a Staircase (No. 2) had in some ways overtaken his story, leaving him ‘only a shadowy figure behind the reality of that painting.’ In fact, Duchamp preferred to glide in relative silence through the artistic avant-garde, even as he profoundly changed the way in which we think about the creation and interpretation of art. His persona was deliberately cloaked in an aura of mystery.”

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ANDY WARHOL: From A to B and Back Again

Nov 12, 2018 – Mar 31, 2019, at Whitney Museum of American Art

Few American artists are as ever-present and instantly recognizable as Andy Warhol (1928–1987). Through his carefully cultivated persona and willingness to experiment with non-traditional art-making techniques, Warhol understood the growing power of images in contemporary life and helped to expand the role of the artist in society. This exhibition—the first Warhol retrospective organized in the U.S. since 1989—reconsiders the work of one of the most inventive, influential, and important American artists. Building on a wealth of new materials, research and scholarship that has emerged since the artist’s untimely death in 1987, this exhibition reveals new complexities about the Warhol we think we know, and introduces a Warhol for the 21st century.

The exhibition positions Warhol's career as a continuum, demonstrating that he didn't slow down after surviving the assassination attempt that nearly took his life in 1968, but entered into a period of intense experimentation. The show illuminates the breadth, depth, and interconnectedness of the artist’s production: from his beginnings as a commercial illustrator in the 1950s, to his iconic Pop masterpieces of the early 1960s, to the experimental work in film and other mediums from the 1960s and 70s, to his innovative use of readymade abstraction and the painterly sublime in the 1980s. His repetitions, distortions, camouflaging, incongruous color, and recycling of his own imagery challenge our faith in images and the value of cultural icons, anticipating the profound effects and issues of the current digital age.

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We have celebrated The Boulevardiers raison de’tre for five 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.

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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.

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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.

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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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