Hasta La Ideas

High art in a revelatory New England field guide by William Wegman

Best known for his photographs of his beloved Weimaraners, William Wegman is an American artist with a talent for the unexpected. The recent release of his book “Hello Nature” coincides with an exhibition at Bowdoin College Museum of Art, both serving to demonstrate the artist’s intrinsic connection to nature and the New England wilderness. In the spirit of childhood—Wegman spent his summers in Maine’s Rangeley Lakes region—the compendium takes the form of a mock survival guide complete with recipes, advice and helpful anecdotes.

Wegman writes that he wished to create “a fiendish nature guide. Something that would combine the New England transcendentalism with a lifelong interest in hiking, fishing, canoeing, and birch bark. Have you ever made tea from birch bark?” For fans of his dog portraits, the woodsy art will shed light on the Wegman’s relationship to creatures. Beneath a crude drawing of a woodland critter, Wegman sums up this connection by writing, “Life wood bee boaring without animals as pets. Without pets life wood bee unbearable.”

Organizationally, Wegman’s own writings and art are broken up with a duo of essays by curators Kevin Salatino and Diana Tuite as well as a piece of short fiction by author Padgett Powell. These written works focus on Wegman’s life, his work, and the role of the environment in both. From the artist, we get a recipe for cinnamon teal duck cake, advice on birdwatching and handwritten treatises on environmental reform.

The layout of “Hello Nature” is curious. Curious in the sense that much of the writing is barely legible, the organization sporadic and the effect emotive. Curious, too, in the sense that this is not the Wegman we think we know. Weimaraners are present, but many of Wegman’s best-known works are left out. The result is that his work is given context outside of the celebrity buzz that dressed-up dogs have earned him. In short, the book is an honest look at the artist and the naturalist.

“Hello Nature” is available for purchase from The Bowdoin Store and on Amazon. The accompanying exhibition of over 100 works is on view at Bowdoin College Museum of Art through 21 October 2012.

An unlikely exhibition pits the New York School rebel against Renaissance Masters

It’s hard to imagine that Cy Twombly, with his canvases composed of angry scratch marks and messy swathes of paint, would have been influenced by 16th-century French painting. But the Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin’s leading modern art museum, proposes just that in its exhibition “Cy Twombly & The School of Fontainebleau“. The School of Fontainebleau was a Mannerist decorative style led, oddly enough, by two Italian artists Rosso Fiorentino (1494-1540) and Francesco Primaticcio (1504-1570), who were commissioned to decorate the Palace of Fontainebleau, built on the edge of a forest 45 miles from Paris for the king’s hunting retreats.

Fiorentino and Primaticcio oversaw everything from the paintings and frescos to tapestries and sculptures, and even used “graphic media to disseminate their programmatic style,” making them not only some of the most renowned artists of the period, but the most media-savvy as well.

Flash forward two and half centuries to Twombly and the New York School of painters. After Twombly left New York and the studio he shared with Robert Rauschenberg (whose works are shown in the same gallery at the Hamburger Bahnhof Museum, along with other prominent figures from the New York School), Twombly moved to Italy where he engaged with European art history in a way he never had before. He was especially moved by Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665), whose style was heavily influenced by Fiorentino and Primaticcio’s graphics. Even though his admiration for the Classical Baroque style seems unlikely, in 2008 Twombly admitted, “I would have liked to have been Poussin, if I’d had a choice, in another time.”

Like Poussin, Twombly often explored myths in his work. “Leda and the Swan” is, of course, about how Zeus transformed himself into a swan in order to come down to earth and rape the mortal Leda, and his “Apollo and The Artist” series is comprised of eight drawings of inscriptions of the word “Virgil”. More specifically, Twombly’s “Empire of Flora” is a direct reference to Poussin’s painting of the same name and explores similar themes of metamorphosis “set in a heroic landscape as an amorous allegory of desire.”

When viewed side by side, you can see elements of Twombly’s pencil work in Poussin’s sketches and studies for larger oil paintings like “The Conversion of St. Paul”. Though it’s not uncommon for modern art museums like the Hamburger Bahnhof to have amassed a collection of modern painters like Twombly, Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol, it is uncommon to see their work curated in direct relation to centuries-old painting, and by making unique connections curators Eugen Blume and Matilda Felix manage to keep works in heavy rotation as fresh and exciting as they were when Twombly’s controversial scratch marks first shook up the art world.

“Cy Twombly & The School of Fontainebleau” runs through October 2012. Find image credits after the jump.

Hamburger Bahnhof

Invalidenstraße 50-51

10557 Berlin, Germany

Image credits:

Empire of Flora: “Empire of Flora” (1961), by Twombly

School of Fontainebleau: “School of Fontainebleau” (1960), by Twombly

Poussin: a study for “The Conversion of St. Paul” (1657) by Nicolas Poussin

Thyrsis: “Thyrsis” (1977), by Twombly

Magnetized paintings expose eerie abstractions

Bulgarian artist Georgi Tushev creates magnetic landscapes, his forms simultaneously recalling nebulous cells and galactic moonscapes to strike a precarious balance between painting and sculptural art. With a body of work that ranges from pixelated paintings of vintage porn stills to portraits of Victorian-style rock stars, Tushev now presents “Ace of Spades“, a collection of new work at the Fitzroy Gallery in SoHo that explores the exotic landscapes of his signature look.

Tushev begins by taping the perimeter of his canvas to create a kind of sealed holding tank into which he pours oil paint with a high concetration of iron before exposing the black soup to a high-powered magnet. After the paint smokes and settles, bizarre formations settle on the canvas. The result is a combination of skillful artistic control and sheer chance, leaving circular fields of monochromatic topography.

For his works on paper, the artist likewise magnetizes watercolor paint, allowing the forces to separate his material into pure blacks, grays and whites. Concentric rings come together to create spectral forms which seem to reveal ghostly portraits, protean nuclei and terrestrial craters within the arrangement of pigment on canvas.

“Ace of Spades is on view at the Fitzroy Gallery through 13 July 2012. See Tushev at work in this video, and find more images from the exhibition in our slideshow

Fitzroy Gallery

77 Mercer Street

New York, NY 10012

A massive collaborative exhibition showcases audio-visual delights

by Naheed Simjee

A resurrected rapper by way of a hologram wasn’t the only technological breakthrough that had people talking last week. Returnees from Coachella Part I flocked downtown on Thursday night for the opening of Transmission LA: AV Club sponsored by Mercedes-Benz and The Avant/Garde Diaries at the Geffen Contemporary at MOCA. The visionary and creative mastermind of the festival, Beastie Boy Mike D, invited 17 multi-disciplinary artists—including Family Bookstore and Roy Choi’s Kogi Korean BBQ food truck—to create extraordinary site-specific installations that demonstrate the influence and inspiration that audio and visual art forms have on one another. The exhibition runs through 6 May 2012 with a full schedule of live performances.

“It’s the new art, a new audience, new music and new technologies all together, and it’s a wonderful fit with the fabulous new Mercedes that is being unveiled tonight,” explains Jeffrey Deitch, director of the MOCA, who has been actively involved with the project since LA was selected for this edition of the festival’s destination. The first Transmission festival was held in Berlin and curated by Dior’s new head designer, Raf Simons.

The exhibition is an immersive experience in sensory stimulation. Upon entering the massive space, seductive lights and vibrant colors tempt patrons to freely explore in every direction. Immediately, Takeshi Murata‘s zany audio loop of a game show host’s voice enthusiastically announces a series of prizes: “It’s a new car! It’s a new boat! It’s a piano!” Exhibition-goers are lured to a projection of sequentially stacked images of The Price Is Right Showcase models revealing game prizes, and a totally unexpected surprise.

Another showstopper is Ben Jones‘ stellar creation of a triangular tunnel—paneled with Tron-like neon grids and sound bites of racecars zooming by—leading to an enormous room in which computer-animated projections take over the floors and walls, as if you’re suddenly transported into a life-size version of Pole Position.

Ara Peterson and Jim Drain have created a series of hypnotic spinning fan-activated pinwheels mounted at different heights and depths. This segment of the exhibition pleasantly seems to slow things down and makes you feel as if you’ve stumbled into the control room at the Wonka Factory.

Tucked away unassumingly in a room further down is another work central to Mercedes’ vision for the project. Visitors are invited to take one of the pairs of headphones hanging from the ceiling to listen to drum and bass tracks created by Adam Horowitz (Ad-Rock of the Beastie Boys), that perfectly sync up to a light performance surrounding the new Mercedes Concept Style Coupe. “The car itself is a sculpture and the original model was made out of hand clay,” says Mark Fetherston, exterior designer for Mercedes. “There’s a lot of shape and it’s an expressive design statement. We’ve taken a more artistic approach and here, we’re mixing with different people, so it’s not just a typical motor show approach. We’re trying to really attract new customers.”

The robust aroma of Miscela d’Oro Espresso beans emanates from Robert McKinley‘s coffee bar installation, based on a concept that Mike D introduced to Deitch when discussing ideas for the exhibition. Mike D and McKinley—who also served as the co-designer of the entire exhibition—are self-proclaimed coffee obsessives and consume a lot of it. “There’s been so many times where I’ve been at an exhibit and I feel like I’ve burned out at a certain point and if I could just get a cup of coffee, I could stay in the game a bit longer,” says Mike D. “I wanted to give all the people here that opportunity. We didn’t want to do it with just a cart, we wanted it to be an impressive cup of coffee, so we took it one step further and actually made it one of the installations in the space. Rob kind of went crazy, in a good way. The beans are from Naples. The coffee has a very classic Italian profile.”

The exhibition also includes works by filmmaker Mike Mills, paintings by Sage Vaughn and Will Fowler, Justin Lowe and Jonah Freeman‘s environmental installation combining fictional narrative with artifacts, Tom Sachs‘ Jamaican sound system-inspired sculpture comprised of several speakers, an axe, a chained iPod and tape deck, video art by Cory Arcangel and Sanford Biggers and a complete build out of a social space in which Public Fiction addresses the topic of the nightclub, that will also host several nights of live performances.

So what are the challenges of putting on a show of this magnitude? Mike D explains, “What ultimately prepared me for being able to do an exhibition like this was that, on multiple occasions, the Beastie Boys had to mount fairly decent size concert tours. Really it’s this quandary of figuring out what’s the visual presentation we’re going to give our music while making it fun and exciting and new. Hopefully, it’s something that people haven’t seen or experienced before, so that’s somewhat analogous to this project. What I’ve taken away from this and have been most inspired by is really just getting to work with the individual artists here.”

“I feel like they really work in the realm of translating the idea and making it into a reality and experience that everybody shares,” says Mike D. “It’s inspiring for me, coming from a world where we have all these parameters, where you want to build something, but someone says, ‘Oh, that will never work!’ or you want to do a record cover, but the artwork isn’t going to be the right size. These artists are really in the job of just being translators of creation. We’ve managed to do this by living here for the past two weeks and working 14 hours a day.”

Mercedes is using the creative platform to redefine itself by associating with the art of tomorrow; as Deitch confirms, “This is exactly what we want to be doing at the MOCA.” Transmission LA: AV Club will run through 6 May 2012 at the Geffen Contemporary.

Geffen Contemporary at MOCA

152 North Central Avenue

Los Angeles, CA 90012

Challenging machismo through hypnotically vibrant thread installations

Growing up as a boy in Mexico, Gabriel Dawe was forbidden to explore the artistic elements of textiles and embroidery, an area thought to be reserved for women. Nevertheless, the color and intensity of Mexican culture began to appear in his artwork after moving to Montreal in 2000. Now based out of Texas, the mixed media artist has made a career out of the mind-bending thread installations that compose the “Plexus” series.

Citing artist Anish Kapoor as a major influence, Dawe creates complex, colorful and often vertigo-inducing spatial structures, which are meant to evoke the invisible forces that shape our existence—such as social norms and expectations—and to draw our attention to the invisible order amidst the chaos of life. On a much more superficial level, the installations are visually beautiful, and seem to make the intangible visible.

As he prepares for the solo show “The Density of Light” at Lot 10 in Brussels, we spoke to the artist about process, masculinity and the peculiarities of light.

What is it like to approach a new installation space?

My work consists of devising the arrangement of the structure I’m going to make with the thread. These installations are site-specific, which means that every new installation has to be created for that particular space. They also have to be done in the space itself, which means that I cannot create them in advance and then transport it.

The process begins with some sort of dialog with the space where the installation is going to be. Every room has particularities that offer possibilities and restrictions to what I can do. Once I decide where to put the wood structures that hold the hooks that serve as anchor points, I start to devise how and in what sequence I am going to link those anchor points, as well as what color progression I will use. It’s usually a lot of planning, so that when I get to the space I can execute my plan as seamlessly as possible.

Can you tell us a bit about the process and the thread that you use?

The thread is regular sewing thread, 100% polyester, and it comes in a wide variety of colors, so I don’t do any of the dyeing myself. Usually each color is a unique long piece of thread, held in place by mere tension. Sometimes I use more than one spool of a certain color, but I just tie together the ends and continue with the installation. The color mixing really occurs in the space, a byproduct of the process. Plexus no. 9 has 5,000 meters of each color, a total of 60 kilometers, which comes to about 37 miles.

How do these new pieces for the “Density of Light” exhibit differ from your previous work?

Because this work is not a studio practice and it relies on having to work in different spaces, every new installation offers the opportunity to try something new, or a different variation of something I’ve already tried. In this way, they are constantly evolving and changing. The particularities of Lot 10, (where 13 and 14 will be) allow me to revisit certain structures I’ve worked on in the past, but with a new variation that will give them a distinct look.

For Plexus no. 13, I’m doing three intersecting structures, similar to No. 6, but with three big differences: the proportions are much different; the placement of the wooden structures, which are at a different angles; and the color sequence. Plexus no. 14 will be a take on one of my very first ideas, which until now I hadn’t had a chance to try.

What about the name, “The Density of Light”?

Very early on in the series, the idea of light became an intrinsic part of these installations. Because I use regular sewing thread on an architectural scale, the structures created are ethereal and diaphanous. I think of them as existing in a space between the material and the immaterial; or like some sort of alchemical experiment where I attempt to materialize light.

How do you see your work as challenging gender roles?

My challenge against machismo was much more obvious when I started to work with embroidery which was expressly forbidden to me as a boy. It is also very present in some of my work within the “Pain” series, where I deconstruct pieces of clothing and I cover them with pins. As my work has evolved, I’ve continued with that thought in mind, but in a more broader sense, exploring social constructs of gender and how we constantly deal with them on a day to day basis.

Gabriel Dawe’s next installation “The Density of Light” will be shown at Lot 10 Galerie in Brussels from April 12 to June 9.

Images courtesy of the artist, Kevin Todora (Plexus no. 4, no. 3), Mike Metcalfe (Plexus no. 5), and Carlos Aleman (Plexus no.12).

Lot 10 Galerie

15 rue Lanfray

1050 Brussels, BE