London Art & Design: Part 1

Some art and design highlights from my recent trip to London.

Dale Chihuly glass chandelier in the dome of the main entrance of the Victoria & Albert Museum

One of the many unique objects at Mint in the Brompton Design District

Mdlle. Adeline Genee by Seb Patane from 'No New Things Under the Sun' at the Tennant Gallery at the Royal Academy of Arts

Shop window on Old Bond Street

100 million (!) handmade, ceramic sunflower seeds line the floor of Turbine Hall at Tate Modern courtesy of Ai Weiwei

Eadweard Muybridge's motion study photographs at Tate Britain

Liberty of London on Regent Street

Julian Schnabel large-scale Polaroids at Colnaghi

The Museum of Everything in Primrose Hill. Has to be seen to be believed!

A New York Minute

Back in December I blogged about an upcoming exhibit that I was excited to see, the photography of Miroslav Tichý at the International Center of Photography (ICP) in NYC. Tichý is a Czech photographer with a fascinating history. You can read more about him in my earlier post and at Tichy Ocean.


Courtesy of Foundation Tichy Ocean

What totally captivated me were his cameras, completely hand constructed from found objects! No photography was allowed at the gallery and for this post, pictures were provided by Foundation Tichy Ocean or shot from post cards bought at the show. Perhaps there is irony to be found in the fact that one cannot take photos of a photography exhibit!!

The exhibit did not disappoint. Although small in scope, the exhibit is well worth a visit. From the exhibit - "His photographs are sensual objects, artifacts of a deliberately abusive production process in which injury and distress are not only allowed but considered philosophically."

"Like a gleaner, he moves through the city, collecting the small moments that others might ignore or overlook."

His photographs were often framed with "a deliberate awkwardness, a denial of perfection." Sometimes mounted on old book covers, paper, or cardboard, his frames were styled with hand drawn lines - sometimes simple and at times quite ornate.

As part of the exhibit, there were two huge glass tanks filled with the "debris" of his career: cameras, film, piles of old photographs, books, leather camera cases, lights made from tin cans, old wooden frames, drawings, and pairs of glasses with bits of metal strands used as ear pieces. For me, these were the best part.


Courtesy of Foundation Tichy Ocean

This exhibit runs through May 9th.

Foundtography

Courtesy of Foundation Tichy Ocean

The first North American museum exhibition of the photography of Miroslav Tichý will be held at the International Center of Photography (ICP) in NYC beginning January 29 and running through May 9.


Courtesy of Foundation Tichy Ocean

Tichý is a Czech photographer and artist with a fascinating history. Born in 1926, Tichý is often described as mysterious and eccentric and is known as much for his cameras as for his distorted photography.


Courtesy of Foundation Tichy Ocean

Tichý studied painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague but left the Academy following the adoption of communism in Czechoslovakia in 1948. After that, he led a reclusive and nonconformist lifestyle.

In the years between the 1960s and the 1980s, Tichý took thousands of photographs, primarily of women. Many of his photographs were taken without his subject's knowledge. Tichý images were often distorted, blurred, ripped, and scratched. Furthermore, he often hand altered the surface of his photographs with pen or pencil.

His style was quite unique but what has fascinated me the most about his story is the fact that his cameras were all hand constructed....


Courtesy of Foundation Tichy Ocean

...out of found objects such as tin cans, shoe boxes, toilet paper rolls, clothing elastic, and cigarette boxes! His lenses were Plexiglas and polished with toothpaste, ashes, sandpaper, and the like.


Courtesy of Foundation Tichy Ocean


Courtesy of Foundation Tichy Ocean


Courtesy of Foundation Tichy Ocean

The ICP exhibit will not only feature Tichý's photographs, but will also include several of his cameras as well. Definitely a must see for me!



Courtesy of Foundation Tichy Ocean

For examples of his work and more information, please visit Tichy Ocean.

A Day at Dia: Beacon

Next stop on my road trip...Dia: Beacon. This museum is the home of Dia Art Foundation's collection of art from the 1960's to the present. Located on the banks of the Hudson River in Beacon, NY, the museum is housed in a former Nabisco box printing factory that was redesigned by the artist Robert Irwin. It is impressive place to view an equally impressive collection of art.









I planned my trip to Dia: Beacon to see a temporary exhibit of one of my most favorite artists ever...Antoni Tapies. Tapies is a Spanish Catalan painter whose work tends toward abstract expressionism but truly transcends this approach. His artwork, though usually canvas-based, is highly sculptural and textural. He often incorporates marble dust and sand, and sometimes uses material and objects to create assemblages on his canvases. And he often adds numbers, letters, and sweeping gestural marks to his paintings. I first read about the exhibit here in the New York Times.



The exhibit, entitled "The Resources of Rhetoric", was well worth the trip. Unfortunately, Dia: Beacon allows absolutely no photography. (This is one of my pet peeves, as for me, viewing art in a museum or gallery seems incomplete if I cannot photograph it). However, several of the paintings in this exhibit were borrowed from the Fundacio Antoni Tapies in Barcelona and I had photographed them on a visit there several years ago.









And just because I am so inspired by Tapies' work, here are a few more images not from this show, including an accordion book that was exhibited at MoMA:











I discovered the work of so many more amazing artists at Dia: Beacon. Again, as there was no photography allowed, I will post examples of the work of each artist from my own photographs that I have taken at other galleries, museums, and at Sotheby's, the auction house.



John Chamberlain: Creates freestanding and wall hanging sculptures from old automobile parts.







Louise Bourgeois: Sculptor of abstract and organic shapes. Also famous for her spiders, one of which was at Dia: Beacon. This photograph was taken at the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain.







Joseph Beuys: German artist who created performance art pieces as well as installations, paintings, sculpture, and assemblages. His work was often political and humanistic.







Gerard Richter: Diverse artist creating blurred figurative paintings, abstract paintings, and overpainted photographs.







Bruce Nauman: Artist working in a wide variety of media, including sculpture, photography, neon, video, drawing, printmaking, and performance.







Richard Serra: The museum has several of his monolithic, 13-feet high, curved steel plates, which you can enter and/or walk through. I was most amazed by the "skin" of the steel, composed of a natural patina of peeling and velvety rusts, ochres, blues, browns, and greys. I have included some close-ups below taken from a previous posting from his show at MoMA.

Waste Not, Want Not

There is an incredibly fascinating and rich exhibition going on right now at the Museum of Modern Art called Waste Not. In his first solo museum show in the United States, Beijing artist Song Dong created an installation piece consisting of the entire contents of his mother's home. Every item, most being utilitarian household objects, becomes meaningful given the context of the Chinese concept of wu jin qi yong, which translates to waste not.


As stated in the accompanying artist book "Not long ago, because of the shortage of goods, the anxiety instigated by political instability, and the traditional virtue of frugality, people saved everything for future usage, including junk and rubbish. Bits of fabric left from making clothes or dust-covered bottles and jars, brick and timber from demolished houses or yellowed magazines and posters from a bygone era --- these objects were gathered piecemeal with insistence and determination. Day after day, year after year, they gradually formed a particular kind of family property, filling the limited space of a household and setting the physical surrounding for a family's day-to-day activities"


The exhibit is set up so you are able to walk through the contents of his mother's home and view close-up the objects that represent a life. The exhibit runs through September 7.

Buried Treasure - Revisited

Digging for gold! Again! This post is my contribution to the second round of the Buried Treasure collaboration. Links to each and every participating artist can be found in the previous post on my blog.





It is all about layers. I wanted to Dig Deeper for my second Buried Treasure post. On the surface, my blog highlights my mixed media artwork. But if you look a little further, you will find posts spotlighting my photography, poetry, drawing, travel adventures, and the like. Look just a little bit deeper, and you will find posts about other artists, other blogs, and links I love. It is all about layers.



In my first Buried Treasure post, I focused on my mixed media artwork. In this "re=post" I have captured some of my favorite things from previous posts that focus on everything else! There are links to follow, videos to watch, and images to enlarge. Happy hunting!



Favorite Window:





Favorite Original Poem:



After the Storm



When the thunder ends and the rain stops falling

When the sea is calm and the birds start calling

The clouds will part like a curtain drawing

Promise of an open door



When the air is clear and the wind stops blowing

The sun reappears and the earth starts glowing

A light so strong as if all knowing

Sense of wonder to explore



In that window, in that time

A clearing of a cluttered mind

A ray of hope, it all takes form

In that moment, after the storm





Favorite Photography Series:



Coastal Waters

Shot in Tofino on Vancouver Island













Favorite Reflection: As Night Falls



Favorite Street Art:



Mixed media(!) graffiti from Greece





Favorite Interactive Zen Website: Wildcard



Click your mouse and move. My favorite is mistyline but be sure to try all five



Favorite Drawing:



Drawn in my course with Danny Gregory on the first day of class







Favorite You Tube Video:

Bouncy Balls - all real, no special effects







Favorite Book Project - no binding necessary:



Book Bundles











Favorite Rust:

Details from the 2007 show at MoMA entitled Richard Serra Sculpture: 40 Years.

Thank you all for going on this treasure hunt with me!