Suchitra Mattai "Osmosis" at Kavi Gupta

 

One, 126" x 180"

Detail

 

A review of Suchitra Mattai "Osmosis" at Kavi Gupta Gallery, Chicago

 

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In tribute to her ancestors who left India in the 19th Century, Suchitra Mattai (b 1973) has laid out this exhibition so that the viewer moves through the galleries as if visiting a Hindu temple. In the final room, the garbhagriha (inner sanctum) she has installed a four foot replica of a temple made of salt - as if it had just emerged from the sea of memory - leaning dramatically to one side - as if it will soon sink back beneath the waves of forgetfulness.

 It soon becomes apparent that the only deity being worshiped here is herself and the quality of the art need not represent any higher being - with two exceptions. Casts were made of Hindu temple sculpture to frame some of Mattai’s pieces. They remind us of just how effectively that tradition can conflate architecture with sacred narrative. 

 But the most remarkable exception is a wall size tapestry that Mattai made herself. Sourcing traditional saris from her own family as well as elsewhere, she has interwoven them into a magnificent, alluring design that has the exotic allure of the Ajanta cave paintings. The artist is probably familiar with other cycles of ancient painting, but the fifth century Ajanta frescoes are the ones best known in the West. Though superficially secular, they are treasures of world sacred art. 

 Titled “One”, Mattai’s piece shows us the backs of three women with golden halos. They appear to be leading us up from blue water as they ascend the peaks of a great mountain. Even if the artist intended them to only represent her own ocean crossing ancestors - I want to follow them too. Something about them is so passionate, glorious and mysterious. Hopefully the Textiles Department of the Art Institute will acquire this piece so I can see it again someday adjacent to other great fiber art. 

 Everything else in the show is also well made - especially the temple of salt. How the hell did she do that?  But is this show really about "the flexibility of storytelling" as the artist proclaims?  How much does it actually reveal about the artist and her family beyond that they identify as Hindus from India and that she identifies as female?  All of the figurative pieces are female-centric - even the one that actually depicts a male or two.  We may admire the artist for respecting her rich cultural legacy as well as  gender - but is that  controversial anywhere except in places like Afghanistan?

 

And is  "flexibility"  of storytelling" really  worth looking at anyway ? Wouldn't you rather have a storytelling that is convincing or intriguing or uplifting or shocking ? Gauging  flexibility is an academic literary project  - as is celebrating an identity that is currently acceptable ( female person-of-color).

Suchitra Mattai is a compelling artist only when she steps away from academic trends and shows what she really wants us to know about herself:  she is descended from three goddesses. And I am inclined to believe her.

James Little - Black Stars and White Paintings

 James Little - Black Stars and White Paintings

Kavi Gupta Gallery

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Spangled Star, 2022, 72"x72"

Calculated Risk, 64" x 74", 2022

 

detail

A Review of James Little - Black Stars and White Paintings at Kavi Gupta

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Racial identity currently dominates the artworld in America. You might even say it has done so for the past 300 years - though up until recently it was the white, rather than black, identity being front and center. What’s remarkable about this identity show is that it’s questionable whether the artist ever really intended it to be one. James Little (b. 1952), makes hard edge, geo-form abstract paintings, and he’s explicit about not engaging a concept. He wants to be free from all that and just make paintings as best he can. All his problems are technical - just as with fine cabinetry. A hundred years ago he would have been welcomed into the Bauhaus. His pieces are still probably best seen in the severe minimalism of a Miles van der Rohe interior.

Down in Memphis, the  patterns of colored stripes in his first museum show of the year was typical of his work. They’re as emotion free as a page torn from a book of color theory. There isn’t even a sense of wonder, balance, or humor. Just the pure, unfiltered energy of a technical investigation. 

But when his monumental “Black Stars” are shown beside his perforated “White Paintings”, the game changes. The black stars exemplify the drive and singularity of purpose that’s still required for blacks to rise above the dark legacy of oppression. The rows of regularly spaced tiny windows into his white paintings reveal an apparently limitless variety of colorful, sensual miniatures - like the urban grid of a trendy white neighborhood where every high rent condo shelters someone’s unique opportunity for self gratification. The artist acknowledges this racial binary in this exhibit, but also tells us “That whole racial aspect isn’t any more important to me than trying to paint some emblematic arrangements with two tones of black.” - so this may be the last time he crosses over into racial stereotypes - even though it would not hurt his career. These same black and white paintings were probably what got him into the Whitney Biennial this year - his first appearance ever.

Minimalism and racial conceptual art  appear to have accidentally collided, and the results are far more compelling than either of those genres by themselves. Likewise, the white paintings in this show are more interesting because of the black ones nearby - and vice versa.  Together they tell a story that’s personal, national, and cosmic — all at the same time.  And it does feel more more important than the artist’s less referential work. More seems to be at stake: social harmony instead of the private isolation.

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note: the New City Review tells us that the artist is "deeply committed to portray the challenges, complexities and possibilities of the Black experience, through the expressive capabilities of abstraction" -- but Black identity is more in the mind of the reviewer than the artist.  His own words, as well as his forty year career as an abstract painter, tell a different story..  

The Language of Beauty in African Art — Art Institute of Chicago

Guro, Ivory Coast, 19th to early 20th Century

This is one amazing show of African art - though it doesn’t really  "decolonize the Western aesthetic standards long placed on these objects” as gallery signage asserts. Indeed, the standard museum style installation reaffirms our world, not theirs. The dramatic lighting and attention to surrounding space encourages the viewer to see formal qualities, as does the arrangement of pieces that look good together, regardless of origin. The exhibit that came to Chicago in 1963, “Senofo Sculpture from West Africa" had a better opportunity to establish local context by focusing on just one people in one place. This exhibition includes many peoples from western and central Africa, from Mali down to South Africa, and often they share the same display case.

And then one might ask: just how were these pieces selected? Obviously 19th century Africans could not be given the job — but what about African artists and collectors from our time? Wouldn’t their sensibilities of life and Art likely be closer to that of their great grandparents? There are a few who are even carrying on their traditions.

 Instead the job was given to Constantine Petridis, the Art Institute’s curator of African Art. Being a Belgian, he is much closer to those who destroyed much of central Africa’s indigenous society. But he’s also much closer to many of the European museums and private collectors from which most of these pieces came. And if I may say so, his taste agrees with mine - which is why I find this show so enjoyable. Just as with European and Asian art, only a small percentage of African art is worth looking at - and Petridis brought us the very best. (for many examples of mediocrity, visit the Art Institute's permanent gallery of African art). So many genres are represented so well: Dan masks, Iginga figures, Luba staffs, Bamala puppets, Igbo helmets, Songye Nkishi, Fang reliquary guardians, Zulu headrests. 

 Yet what’s missing are more recent examples. It’s as if all African art traditions died out in the early 20th Century. And while it is an axiom of Euro art theory that you cannot enter the same river twice, traditional societies demand that you keep on jumping in.

 Petridis did such a great job, I really don’t wish any one else had been involved. But rather than all the virtue signaling about decolonization, I wish he had done something actually virtuous as well as ground breaking:  show us more recent African art  that’s related to the traditions seen in this show - like the Nigerian sculptor Moshood Olusomo Bamigboye   (which is not to say that I recommend him)

African art pursues a life affirming power  (as in the above image). that so much of mainstream contemporary art studiously avoids.

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A selection  of my favorite pieces is shown here

Dmitry Samavov in the Chicago Reader wrote pretty much the same thing. The "de-colonization" proclaimed in the signage is utter nonsense - but the spirit of life runs very strong in these carvings.

Tcharam ! ... at The Very Serious Gallery

 

Adam Holzrichter, Lady Komodo

Bruno Passos, The Sculpture Thief

Trevor Knapp, Once Long Lost

“Tcharam!” … an upbeat Portuguese fanfare equivalent to “ta-da!’ in English …. is indeed appropriate here as it announces the first time that students of Odd Nerdrum have exhibited together in Chicago. The work of the Norwegian  master himself does not appear - and his mythopoetic Baroque paintings are way too Euro-old-school to be shown in any local art museum. (though some small pieces have occasionally made it into Art Expo) You can go online, however,  to get some idea of his imagery as well as philosophy of art. He is an outspoken proponent of what he calls “kitsch”

Collecting figurative tchotchkes has been de rigueur among Chicago Imagists from Roger Brown to Phyllis Bramson -- but Nerdrum’s favorite kitsch can only be found in art museums - not gift or toy shops. It’s appropriate for an elite, sophisticated, historically minded viewer who seeks catharsis rather than the comfort or thrills of popular entertainment. It cultivates sincerity rather than irony and aims for an emotional maturity rather than the perpetual adolescence so celebrated in Chicago. “Its nature is deeply antagonistic towards the present” and it “lavishly relishes imitation”.

In one way,  Nerdrum’s pedagogy is also old-school. His students don’t pay but they do have to model or assist in studio production. Contrary to traditional ateliers, however, he doesn’t teach students how to paint like himself - he encourages them to develop their own vision- whatever it may be - and the three former students in this exhibit have indeed gone in three different directions. What they share is an emphasis on narrative content at the expense of more formal qualities. These two concerns need not be conflicted -- as proven by many art museum masterpieces - but if an immediate emotional impact is all that an artist wants -- that’s likely  all a viewer will ever get. If that's what the Nerdrum school calls “kitsch” - that’s fine with me -- but not when they offer the paintings of Rembrandt, Turner, Caravaggio, Vermeer, and Chardin as examples.

Trevor Knapp’s pieces appear the most effective at delivering an immediate feeling with clarity - and their grating anxiety would work well to illustrate a gothic novel. Bruno Passos seems to deliver puzzlement rather than any other emotion. Something dramatic may be happening - or maybe these pieces are more about the history of painting. “The Sculpture Thief” has me thinking about early Picasso while “Black Coat” references Giacometti - though they are not quite as strong.

Most puzzling are the dream like fantasies of Adam Holzrichter. He has created a a luminous, casual, rumpled world without straight lines or volumes, buzzing with a kind of post-coital energy. His series, of dissipated floral altars belongs on the stage of Tannhauser’s Venusberg. A similar ambivalence toward sexual desire appears in “Lady Komodo” - an anti-erotic variation on Velazquez’ Venus -  here reclining in her boudoir beside a pig and a few of the planet’s largest living reptiles. The subject is outrageous - yet the blurry painting summons a yawn rather than any feeling of anger, disgust, contempt , or even humor.

According to Tomas Kulka, the oft quoted author of “Kitsch and Art” (1994); “The objects or themes depicted by kitsch are instantly and effortlessly identifiable”  Other than Trevor Knapp’s, most of the works in this show would not qualify as such. Yet neither do many of them have the distinctive formal tension of art. These are, however, highly motivated young artists who don’t follow trends.  There’s  no telling what they'll be doing in a decade or two.

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It wasn’t in this show, but my favorite piece in the gallery was Adam Holzrichter’s painting in the restroom.  A wonderfully immersive experience in a fantasy-like forest suitable for Siegfried and Brunhilde.  Note how the roll of tissue paper appears to be floating in the illusional space, while the angled tree trunk and foliage beneath defeat the corner of the room.

Ian Mwesiga at Mariane Ibrahim : Theatre of Dreams

 

Forbidden Fruits, 2022

It felt like Summer when I visited this show last Saturday, but the temperature dropped at least ten degrees when I entered the gallery. Blues, greens, and grays dominated the walls - challenged only slightly by a few tepid pinks. Each oil painting presented a flat, wooden, solitary figure engaged in a highly competitive activity. All of the young men were basketball players. In their crisp, new jerseys , they were all good enough to make the team. Several of them were especially athletic. Michael Jordan himself could never soar that high in the air. But they were not competing on a basketball court - they were silhouetted against a barren landscape whose colors are noted above. Most of the young women were at a grand piano - but none were touching the keys. They sat beside, slept against, or danced as a ballerina upon it. Actually - I don’t think any of these young Ugandans have ever practiced, much less mastered, either of these activities. They just fantasize about it - presumably to escape a reality that offered so little stimulation, either mental or sensual. I can’t recall healthy young flesh depicted so un -erotically — except perhaps in Byzantine icons. Possibly the artist grew up in a rather severe form of Christianity. The only young women not next to a piano were near picked apples in a garden  --  one of which is posted “CAUTION ; BEWARE OF SNAKES”.

  Traditional python worship is still common among the Bunyoro of western Uganda, but the snake-garden-apple trope obviously came from another civilization - as did the clothing and architecture that are depicted.  As a consequence of European colonialism, these young people are foreigners in their own country. Every step must be taken with care.

 The young artist’s website shows his earliest works, and in 2017 the subject matter was quite different. Mwesiga’s “School of Dance and Beauty’’ was an obvious homage to Kerry Marshall’s “ School of Beauty, School of Culture” - again demonstrating the international appeal of our local super-star. People joyfully participating in a social setting has been pictorialized in many times and places. But it’s unusual to find young people depicted as lost at the threshold of adult life. One good artist who comes to mind is Tetsuya Ushida (1973-2005) - who likely stepped in front of a speeding train at the age of 32. Mwesiga, however, may not share the unhappiness of those he is depicting. He’s probably just painting what he sees around him - and it's quite an achievement to portray it so beautifully, compassionately, and without an upfront political agenda.

He shows his subjects as dreamers, not victims. As he sees more kinds of things, he will probably move on. This is a career that I would like to follow.

Basketball Player II

Arvie Smith at Monique Meloche

 

 

Echo and Narcissus, 2022

 

 

 As Arvie Smith says in an interview “ Even though I’m a professional, when I’m out on the street I’m seen just like a pimp- I’m treated just like any other black figure which in some instances have just about as much rights as a horse, a dog, or a chair.” 

Apparently he has been sufficiently outraged by race-based humiliation that he devoted the past two decades of his life to expressing that through art. ( and maybe even earlier - the pieces in this show date only from 2006 to 2022. The artist was born in 1938)

Smith also suggests that he would like his work to initiate a dialogue - but what can be discussed with a man who is yelling? It would be futile to mention the cost and the consequences of the Civil War or Civil Rights legislation - or even the successes of his own career. He wants viewers to feel his pain - though curiously his cartoonish mages are as breezy and ebullient as Disney cartoons. His work feels screwball joyful until you recognize the symbols and the narrative of hate and degradation. He appears to be enjoying himself even as he expresses the misery of racism.

The image of young boys looking at their reflections in “Echo and Narcissus” (2022) is the most poignant. They’ve been taught to see themselves as empty-headed goofs or monsters. Does the artist still feel that way about himself ? Some viewers may feel empathy for the damage done to innocent children - others may regret that the artist had not yet taken responsibility for a self image that only he can repair. Both are correct - and so this body of work contributes to the polarization that defines this moment in American life - providing career opportunities for extremists of every persuasion.

Will this work hold interest when that moment has passed ? These are more like agitprop storyboards than the painterly work of Robert Colescott who introduced Smith to the genre. The figure drawing is suitable for political cartoons, but does not rise to the level of the snappy characterizations of that 18th Century icon of sarcasm, Thomas Rowlandson. And there is nothing like the formal power of a recent master like Charles White.

But the manic, bubbly, high pitched energy of his surfaces do echo those of his mentor, the ABX painter Grace Hartigan. Plus, the artist seems desperate to cram as many tropes into each work as possible. More is more. Subtlety - tossed out the window - lies spreadeagled on the pavement below. If he lived in Chicago, Smith might be called an Imagist. Recently he has begun to explore Classical mythology. It’s quite a stretch to conflate Leda and the Swan or the triumph of Bacchus with racism in America. It gives some hope that he may ultimately present a life not tethered to victimhood. And maybe he already has - - - if you just ignore the subject matter.

Mitch Clark at Oliva Gallery

 

The Mitch Clark show now at Oliva Gallery does indeed resemble the jazz music suggested by its title, “Riff Driven”. Shreds of solid colors, often primary, weave in and out of each other as they erupt into space - much like the notes blaring out from a tenor saxophone. But I really can’t think of any jazz album for which it might serve as cover art. It’s too rationally organized for free jazz - but I’m not getting the kind of identifiable emotions that are up front in more melodic songs. Perhaps the best word for it is “psychedelic” - like a Jimi Hendrix solo on electric guitar Full of excitement and passion —- but who knows for what. 

 This is self-centered art - which is not necessarily a bad thing. Earlier hard edge Chicago abstract painters, like Rudolph Wrisenborn or Morris Barazani seemed to be presenting a world outside themselves. Clark is closer to the New York School which was introduced into the Dallas - Fort Worth area while he was beginning his career there. The conglomeration of shapes at the center of each of these paintings appears to be the artist himself. Unlike many other Abstract Expressionists, however, he’s not especially tormented, angry, or heroic. He’s just alive - very alive - and like all living things, he’s always changing. Each painting also seems to be transforming from one thing to another - as does his work from one decade to another. Back in the sixties, his paintings were anxious and atmospheric. A few decades later, he picked up that famous, though sometimes tedious, innovation of modernism : the Grid. Now, in his seventh decade of painting, he seems to be proudly singing a song of himself - like Walt Whitman - or every child who’s been given paint and paper. 

 We all like children’s art - but who would really go out of their way to see some? It comes from - and only requires, a quite limited span of attention. It’s not yet connected to any of the great ideas associated with civilization - and it hasn’t yet developed formal power. It’s disposable ( except, of course, to a doting parent). Many of the pieces in this show don’t have enough content to hold my attention, either. Yet they all seem to be moving towards profundity and power - and a few of them are riveting. They have a sense of wide-eyed curiosity and opening up to the world. Like the aging Matisse with his paper cut-outs, Mitch Clark is neither an old fogey nor an ignorant child. 

 One of the delights of this show is the artist’s acrylic technique. The paint is uniformly thin but not translucent. Brush strokes are not visible, but neither is there a clinical precision to the edges of the shapes of solid color. The edges are just loose enough to feel casual but not careless - appropriate for light-hearted animal shapes that occasionally wander in.  ( is that a big orange rhino or a jackass that appears in the above image ?)

 Social activism, banished from American art in the 1950’s has recently returned with a vengeance. Self expressive artists like Clark, unless they present a preferred identity, are now painting way under the artworld’s radar. But that doesn’t make their art any less beautiful 

 

 

 

 

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Lonn Taylor's great interview with the artist can be heard here

 

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Jack Roth (1927-2004), Rope  Dancer, 1980

 

 

 here's some work seen at Chicago's Art Expo in 2012.

It works with similar elements

but feels more like a world 

where things that are broken have to be fixed -  

instead of toyed with.

BTW - Roth's day job was professor of mathematics.

 Robert Irvin (1922-2015), St. Germain, 1995

This British artist,  seen at Chicago's Art Expo this year,

did not restrict himself to areas of solid color - 

but like Clark, he does express a child's joy of exploration and being alive

 - even at a ripe old age.

 

 

 

DePaul Museum, Wrightwood 659, Art Institute of Chicago - What’s new

 

Three museums seen on a Saturday afternoon in October

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DePaul Museum

A Natural Turn: María Berrío, Joiri Minaya, Rosana Paulino, and Kelly Sinnapah Mary

Within A Natural Turn, Berrío, Minaya, Paulino, and Sinnapah question Western and Eurocentric standards of beauty, femininity, and womanhood by reimagining the surreal—creating imaginary journeys around the metamorphoses of the body and redefining what it means to be human. For these artists, surreal imagery is useful in that it can at once call attention to the conflicted legacies of imperialism and colonialism, challenge the status quo, and subvert one’s experience of reality. Surrealism within this exhibition is a means to interrogate structures of power. (Gallery signage)

The above boilerplate of social justice art theory conveniently ignores the "structure of power" that produced this exhibition itself : a major local university with a 36 acre campus in an upscale Chicago neighborhood and a billion dollar endowment.  Whatever status quos may be getting challenged here, the authority of educational institutions and their social political agendas are not among them.

Not that I need artists to express angst, alienation, or despair —- far from it —- but the self righteousness of the educated elite is no more uplifting - primarily because it’s boring.  No spiritual struggle is evident here. It relies on the cleverness and political correctness of ideas to establish value. The pieces in this exhibit are pleasant and well made, but they have no more formal power than childrens’ book illustrations.  As Kerry Marshall has demonstrated, identity art doesn’t need to be this way.

But still - I do have a favorite; Kelly Sinnapah Mary.  As she tells her story in gallery text,  she was born on Guadeloupe and  did not know, until adulthood,  that her ancestors came from India rather than Africa.  So now she’s producing delightful small figurines with black skin and three eyes. (In Hindu spirituality, the third eye chakra plays a major role)

 

 

 Like the other small figures on the table, 

these look like pastries but were made with mortar and paper..

They feel crude -- but also quite alive.

 

(the poor fellow with blue suspenders has been sliced down the middle,

but that's OK, he's only a piece of cake)

The artist seems to be having fun with all this stuff.

 

Possibly she accepts that the confusion of her ethnic identity

is one of the many jokes that universe plays on all of us.

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WRIGHTWOOD 659

 
The First Homosexuals: Global Depictions of a New Identity, 1869-1930

 

This is an exhibition about the very first artists whose work fell under the contested category of "homosexual." In 1869, the Hungarian writer and activist Karl Maria Kertbeny coined the term

homosexual. Before then, same-sex sexuality referred to the act performed rather than to a distinct class of persons--in other words, it was a verb, not a noun. "Homosexual" was widely adopted, first in Europe, then the US, and finally around the world, in part because it reinforced increasing legal and medical attempts to isolate, define, pathologize and police same-sex sexuality. But the attempt to delimit and contain a segment of the population had unintended and deeply paradoxical consequences for the fine arts. As language increasingly compartmentalized sexuality into either heterosexual or homosexual--the first celebrated and acceptable, the second confined to a shadowy realm and unacceptable--art unleashed a torrent of new representations of same-sex desire that could hardly be contained. An unprecedented kaleidoscope of new sexual identities rejected the homo/hetero binary even as it was being forged. In fact, there is an inverse relationship between the acceptance of this increasingly rigid binary definition of sexuality and the proliferation of new identities and erotic possibilities in art. This exhibition of the earliest works of "homosexual" art is arguably much queerer than some contemporary "gay and lesbian" art because of its refusal of gender norms, as well as a refusal to perceive either homosexuality or heterosexuality as mutually exclusive or as an inherently permanent category. While homosexual has come to be defined as signifying a mostly male world, this exhibition shows how central female same-sex sexuality was at its origins, as was gender queerness and other identity categories we assume to be products of our contemporary world.    (Gallery signage)

Donatello, "David", 1435-1440

Regretfully this great statue did not travel to Chicago for this exhibit - but I’m posting it here to remind us all that eroticism in male figures flourished in European art long before 1869. What a fine young dude! - nude except for sandals and a foppish hat.

The lad has a sensuous boyish figure - but as sculpture this piece is far from effete. It thrusts itself into the surrounding spatial envelope - it doesn’t shrink from it.

Robert Tait McKenzie, "The Athlete", 1903

Here is an allegedly homoerotic  piece selected for this show.  I do read it as effete (as well as wooden and awkward) - but maybe not intentionally so.  McKenzie was not trained as a sculptor so he would never have closely studied ancient and Renaissance examples. He was a physician with an  enthusiasm for physical fitness - not great sculpture. He is sometimes listed as an LGBTQ artist, but there is zero evidence of any sexuality outside his marriage (to a woman). This is just another example of making a fiction true by repeating it often enough.  (a familiar tactic in political agit-prop)

 

 

But we’re also shown a few fine examples of late 19th Century Shunga.   Japanese artists rule the world of explicit erotic art- and they have done so for centuries.

I’d never seen Lesbian Shunga before - but going online, there’s plenty to be found.

The idea here seems to be that sexual energy - of any kind - is to be enjoyed, not repressed.

And, of course, this attitude in Japan predated 1869.

Charles Demuth, Eight O’Clock (Morning), 1917

Here’s a great watercolor depicting the complications of the artist’s personal life.  We can only guess how these three young men spent the previous night together.

Duncan Grant, Bathers by the Pond, 1920-21

And here’s another artist sharing his personal \romantic life.

It’s a subject matter that’s rarely found, especially before the 20 th  Century. (Perhaps Goya's Naked Maja would qualify as such)

Caravaggio, Boy with Basket of  Fruit, 1593

…. and so might  this portrait of the artist’s young protege and companion.  It certainly seems to be presenting a boy-toy for delectation (along with other ripe fruit) - but the artist's personal life has barely been documented.

Owe Zerge,  Model Act, 1919

This boy’s apparent modesty and vulnerability might arouse a certain kind of lust. And he’s off balance - ready to fall.  But would  the artist and his patrons agree ?  There is zero biographical information about them on the internet. And the boy does appear beneath the legal age of consent - at least in our country.  What was the law in Sweden back in those years? Gallery signage does not raise these issues. Should it? This is not the mythological Ganymede.

David Paynter, Afternoon, 1935

 

 

Gallery text tells us that one naked boy is presenting the other with a flower with an unusually long stamen.   Paynter's father was British, his mother was Sinhalese. He is an important figure in the art history of Sri Lanka.

I'm not feeling any sexual energy here - but it does feel quite Japanese in its flatness and possible subject matter:  handsome youth going on a picnic (only its cute boys instead of girls)

Jane Poupelet, 1906

Gallery text refers to this as "holistic eroticism" — i.e. the breasts and pubes cannot be seen - but still we have the sense of a young, vibrant  body.

The same could be said, however, for Poupelet’s drawings and sculptures of farm animals.

She was among the early innovators of that Modern-Classical style whose best known exponent is Maillol. Poupelet is listed here  in my catalog of that style. It's sad that her career was cut short by illness.

 

 

 

Maillol, Young Cyclist, 1907-1909

Here's a Maillol male nude from about the same time.

(It’s not in this show)

Is it erotic?

Did the artist feel that way about it ?

It seems no less possible than most of the other pieces in this show.

Magnus Enkell,  Man with Swan, 1918

As gallery notes suggest, this is a playful variation on Leda and the Swan.  Browsing online, Enkell's erotic.nudes were exclusively male - and these butt cheeks feel hot and ready for action. Though still it's a far cry from Tom of Finland.

Thomas Eakins, Salutat, 1898

Karl Kertbeny may have coined the word "homosexual" in 1869 - as a less judgmental term than "sodomite’ - but that doesn’t mean that all practitioners must identify as such ever after -  and since this was nearly a century before Gay Pride, all we can do is guess about the sexual feelings and  identity of most of these artists.

It does seem that Eakins is drawing our attention to the boxer’s cute buttocks - and he does not appear to be a fearsome pugilist any more than a lithe folk dancer. What other point could this painting be making other than the contrast between bravado and vulnerability?

It's not very attractive, by the way, in person. The portraits in the background feel crude - the space feels uncomfortable - the color and lighting feel sickly.  It's not surprising that it was unsold during the artist;s lifetime. I'm quite grateful, though, that the curators brought it to Chicago -- because I may never get around to visiting the Addison Museum in Andover.

 

 

 

 

The butt cheeks are cute - but so is the eager lad in this promotional photo for the same fellow.

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Overall, this exhibit was disappointing, if not depressing - though, I suppose, that's appropriate for the shame then attached to homosexuality. And Lesbian desire does seem to have been underrepresented. Perhaps the curators tried but failed to get them - but the sculptures of Harriet Frishmuth  and the paintings of Tamara de Lempicka are glaring omissions.

A low aesthetic value and marginal connection to homosexuality runs throughout this exhibit. Most of this  stuff really does not need to be seen in person for whatever history lesson you can take from it. A website would have been much more convenient.

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Art Institute of Chicago

Bridget Riley 

Blue Landscape, 1959

Bridget Riley’s (b. 1931) Op Art made it big in the swinging London of the 1960’s - but after then… not so much. All four of her pieces in the A.I.C. permanent collection date no later than 1971. 

But prior to that - in the decade after art school, her idol was Georges  Seurat - and she made landscapes and portraits following his kind of simplification to produce some images with a startling sense of presence.

River at Molcey’s  Mill, 1952-55

Man in Garden, 1952-55

Self portrait, 1956

Garden with White aloud, 1952

Riley never went back to figurative painting - but probably  not for economic reasons.  She seems to have been fascinated with the interface of mind and repetitive geo-form patterns. Manual fracture was not crucial for her — she gave that work to others - right from the very beginning.   That’s the kind of work that mostly fills this exhibit.

1988

I find such work as bloodless and boring as an electrical circuit board - even if it has some important application of which I am unaware.

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David Hockney

The Arrival of Spring, Normandy, 2020

When was the last time you saw an exhibit of contemporary landscapes at the Art Institute of Chicago? 

(for me the answer is never - but then I am less than a hundred years old). This show might be quite thrilling  for those who like landscape paintings even if they weren’t done in the 19th Century.  But it’s not likely that they will ever see another.  This is an exceptional case: a superstar artist is venturing into a new technology: the IPad and  its dedicated graphics program, "Procreate’.

With 116 pieces executed over five months, that’s nearly one a day - quite a regimen.  The graphic program lets the user cut, paste, and draw within a great number of independent layers.  It’s an opportunity for endless experimentation.  It also works with pure, direct frequencies of light rather than the surfaces that reflect them.   That’s probably why Hockney was so enthusiastic about learning a new medium even at his advanced age:  he loves pure color.  

Hockney’s IPad  designs have been blown up into printouts four to six feet wide and then crammed into two dark, narrow, hundred foot hallways. With  all the high chroma color, the effect  is a bit overwhelming  - like the immersive Monet or Van Gogh projections so popular in Chicago.   These pieces are more like posters than paintings  - and possibly you  remember the difference between Van Gogh's Sunflowers as seen in a  museum wall and a large print of same that you may have hung on the wall of your college dormitory.

What we have here is pleasant graphic art on the theme of renewal -- the joy of being alive -- by an octogenarian master.  Contemporary art usually considers life a joke or puzzle, if not a painful burden.  Hockney is playful and virtuosic.  Every tap of his stylus is connected to the lively energy of the pictorial space he is creating.

What we don’t have, however,  is a sense of place - other than Hockney’s overheated imagination. Nor do we have that much formal power.

Like a trip to the gelato shop.

The theme as well as spontaneous execution reminds me of some Chinese masters of brush painting

Like this piece, for example.

BTW -it’s a still taken from a popular instructional video.

It’s anonymity and traditional technique is quite a contrast with this show.

Xu Wei (1521-1593)

This  example displays the formal intensity that Hockney’s pieces are missing - but hey - he’s a really old, rich, and famous guy who could be basking on an exclusive beach  somewhere instead of working so hard to make us all happy. And he has has accomplished what no other living artist has been able to do for a hundred years:  put a show of landscapes into the Art Institute of Chicago.

Nick Cave : Retrospective at the MCA Chicago

 

 

 

 

Nick Cave is best known for his “Soundsuit” series, begun over thirty years ago. and now numbering over 500. With all its raukus, oversized, colorful variations, it is truly exuberant. More importantly for the artist’s standing in the contemporary artworld, it initiated a connection between his career and racial politics. Explanatory text tells us that the first Soundsuit was a gathering of sticks intended to conceal the artist’s racial and gender identity in response to the then recent beating of Rodney King. Within the racial justice wing of the contemporary artworld, that reaction is understandable since both King and Cave were young African American men in 1991. Outside that mindset, however, we might note that King could only find work as a part time laborer while Cave already had an MFA, a career in fashion, and a teaching position at a leading art school. King caught the attention of law enforcement because he was speeding, not because he was black. Then he led police on a high speed chase to avoid an alcohol test and possible suspension of his parole. Initially, all the officers involved were acquitted of using excessive force. In a second trial, two were convicted, but even then the presiding judge acknowledged that most of the beating was necessary to subdue the suspect. King’s status as a victim of racial injustice was questionable, but Cave presented it as clear cut. As he play-victimized himself, he simplified, personalized, and polarized a complex situation. As polarization in American politics has grown exponentially over the following decades, threatening the republic itself, we now might ask whether the artist really was acting responsibly even though he proclaimed himself “an artist with civic responsibility”


None of which can diminish the joyful visuality of these pieces, especially the wackiness and wonder of “Speak Louder” (2011) the most choreographed Soundsuit installation on display. Paradoxically, if any political message were intended it would appear to be cautionary. The seven sequin-suited humanoids are eyeless, earless, faceless, walking megaphones - presumably broadcasting “truth” at high volume. An appropriate metaphor for agit-prop art of all persuasions. One might also note that this piece is owned by two museums, the Chicago MCA and the Buffalo AKG. It doesn’t need to be on permanent display as the masterpieces of ABX painting often are. The intensity of an artist’s personal touch is not the issue. As with most of Cave’s work, fabrication was done by others. There’s a thrill in the surprise of first viewing - but beyond that, what’s left to see? Contrast that with Sam Gilliam’s “Cartouche” (1981), a painting now hanging on the museum’s lower level in memorial to his recent passing. One can never see enough of a good painting.


Accompanying “Speak Louder’ is one of Cave’s circular fabric tondo’s hung high up on the wall. It’s a colorful foil to the monochrome sound suits below - but it’s more decorative than expressive. His spectacular tondo’s shown at the Cultural Center in 2006 felt so much closer to an artist’s eye, hand, and spirit.


The rest of the exhibition is mostly in a darker tone. Cave delivers a message of racial grievance with his enshrinements of racist memorabilia. As quoted elsewhere, he’s been “on a crusade to find the most inflammatory, oppressive, despairing objects that I could find around the country.” And again, one might ask - is this really behaving responsibly? Even the museum of racist memorabilia in Michigan doesn’t show pieces this repulsive. Would Cave claim that these represent the majority opinion in any white community? Or is it only evidence of a fringe that may never go away ? As others presumably share his feelings of oppression and despair, what is supposed to be the positive outcome?


In many other pieces, Cave makes statements about black identity using bronze body casts taken from his own body parts. The artist happens to have a buff, heathy body - but body cast shapes express no inner spirit as carved or modeled figure sculpture can do. They retreat from surrounding space rather than seize and organize it. The resulting mood is grim, regardless of how uplifting the intended ideas may be. In contrast, Cave also uses plenty of mass produced, low end sculpture throughout the exhibit - kitschy toys, lawn decorations, and gift shop collectibles. The mood they create is often giddy because that’s what sells, and as we know, every true Chicago artist since Roger Brown is supposed to collect it. The one mood that Cave’s work does not engender is that of deep contemplation. It’s more like political cartoon.


The cloud of metallic spinners that fills the airspace of the atrium introduces this Nick Cave retrospective as if it were a kind of carnival. There is a sensory overload of flashing light and color. Like the rest of the exhibition, it includes both store-bought and bespoken artifacts. Many are fanciful eyecatchers, but a few take the shape of pistols - just to remind us, as the artist says, that violence is lurking right here in our own backyard. And isn’t that just like a carnival? The strange and alluring juxtaposition of the morbid and the glitzy - with just a hint of danger.


If Cave does not produce the kind of visual experience once associated with art museums, it’s not so much that the artist has fallen short as that the mainstream contemporary artworld has not called for it. A dazzling, politically correct (though not especially responsible) carnival of grievance is quite sufficient, thank you.