January 30. 2014 At last-the Venice Biennale

Just close your eyes, click your heels, go back in time to October 2013 and we are at the Venice Biennale.  I had read dozens of articles and reviews about the 2013 Biennale but, after walking about 30 minutes from our hotel, it was a real thrill to finally arrive at the ticket booth in time for the 10AM opening. 

 Not to mention actually entering the Arsenale, one of the two main venues for the show.  The other was the Giardini where pavilions from all the countries were located. In addition, other related shows were scattered all over Venice in palazzi, churches and other public locations.  It would have taken several weeks to see everything but we had only a day and a half and did our best.  This is the first of a series of posts about this incredible show.

Entering the Arsenale, the first exhibit to take your breath away was Il Palazzo Encliclopedico, the famous structure by Italian-American artist, Marino Auriti.  For an excellent explanation of this model and why the Biennale was structured around its theme, see  http://universes-in-universe.org/eng/bien/venice_biennale/2013/tour/palazzo_enciclopedico.  This site will also let you get more information on any one artist you may be interested in.

The Biennale included contemporary works and also works from the past.  Plans for the Encyclopedic Palace were first filed in 1955 but this massive sculpture, Belinda, by Robert Cuoghi was dated 2013.  Rising from the floor like some giant encrustation of trilobites, it was a force to be reckoned with.

Equally strong but much smaller was the photographic work of J.D. ‘Okhai Ojeikere which encircled the first exhibition room around the Encyclopedic Palace and Belinda.  These gelatin silver prints which began in the 1960‘s documented women’s hairstyles and head wrappings of Nigerian women.

With work in every possible medium, I soon felt batted around like a ping pong ball.  These delicate and lovely drawings on paper by Lin Xue (1995-98, 2012) were done with a sharpened piece of bamboo dipped in ink.  Depicting fantastical landscapes and plant forms observed on mountain hikes, his work speaks to the energy found in nature and the similarity of forms found in the biological and geological  worlds.

January 28, 2014 Opening Reception At Dairy Art Center, Boulder

Last Friday evening I was up at the Dairy Art Center in Boulder for the opening of the 25th anniversary show of Front Range Contemporary Quilters.  Three very different shows opened that night. Walking into the building down a long hallway, I was thrilled to see an exhibition of printmaking, Stories In Print.  Like pencil drawing, printmaking is an art form not seen very much these days.

Ann Johnston-Schuster’s black and white woodcut prints of children stopped me in my tracks.  Her massing of small thin black lines creates an atmosphere of powerful tension.  Her statement describes her subjects as “children that have fallen victim to the physical and emotional constraints placed upon them.”

The Light Moves His Eye

The War

On the opposite wall were intaglio prints, very tender in feeling, portraying a story of Anu and the Whale, a tale taking place on another planet.  The lower contrast of these works   and the softness of edges draws the viewer closer in order to see the intricate detail.

The World

Supplies

In the large gallery where the artist talks took place were large abstract expressionist oil paintings by Tania Dibbs in a show called Humanity, Earth, Intentions and Consequences. In her talk, Tania discussed her background both in art and biology, her previous career in realistic landscape painting and her transition to her current work.  She talked about her fascination with the discovery of nitrogen as the element that ultimately changed the world both for good and bad through its use as a fertilizer, allowing more people to be fed and populations to expand.  These concerns are the subject of her current work.

Human Construct

Beautiful Mess

The Front Range Contemporary Quilters anniversary show featured a huge variety of works in many styles from pieces with intense surface design to pieces with photographic origins and included several three dimensional works.

                                                               My work on left and work by Jean Herman on right

Work by Mary McCauley

January 15, 2014 Black and white, pencil, paper and conte crayon

It’s so rare anymore to see an exhibit of drawings that I can hardly believe I’ve seen two very exciting ones in the past couple of weeks.  Just yesterday at the University of Denver was a jewel of a show called Mash-up, small drawings with pencil on board by Faye Anderson.  She has taken images from art history, from different time periods and cultures, and placed people and objects in very clever and witty combinations.

Two Girls and A Guy, Rubens and Botticelli

Lazy Girl Recliners, Rousseau

Upstairs at the head of a stairway is a large quilted work by Faye on a similar theme, Famous Women In Art On Quilted Background.  This piece is permanently installed in the Merle Chambers building on the university campus.

Detail

At the opposite end of the size spectrum are enormous pencil drawings by Joseph Stashkevetch in a show rightly called Epic at the Denver Art Museum.  Though very different in scale but seeming to come from a similar idea, his work also combines classic and contemporary content in an extremely detailed and photorealistic way.  He uses conte crayon on watercolor paper.

A Beautiful Fall 2013

Detail

Obsolete 2013

Made my fingers want to grab those pencils and get out a sketchbook!

January 1, 2014 Back to European Museums-Rome

One of the joys of our trip in October was the huge span of time that the art covered, from ancient to very contemporary.  Halfway through our travels I thought about how wonderful it would have been to plan a tour that started with the Romans and went in chronological order to the present day but that wasn’t how our travels happened.  So now we were back in the past.

Our friendly and very knowledgeable Roman guide, Laura, who had shepherded us through the Vatican and Sistine Chapel and happily accommodated our wish to see as many Caravaggios as possible, suggested that we spend a couple hours at a museum near our hotel and avoid the mass austerity demonstration that was planned for the following day, a very god plan!

The Palazzo Massimo alle Terme, whose former incarnations included service as a Jesuit seminary and a WWII military hospital, was indeed worth the visit.  Laura had recommended the museum because of my husband’s interest in ancient coins.  Those were beautifully lit, labeled and displayed in a giant vault in the basement. 

Also housed there was the mummy and sarcophagus of a young girl found on the Via Cassia in 1964.  Displayed near her were several relics from her life.

Gold hair ornament

Upstairs in the museum were frescoes and mosaics from several locations and excavations, including the villa of Livia, wife of Augustus, pavements from residential buildings in Rome and a villa at Castel di Guido.  Some of the frescoes were only faintly visible, faded with time.  This one, however, clearly shows the beauty of delicate line and drawing.

And a couple of mosaics.

This one was remarkable for the size of the stones, the ones in the center of the face barely a couple of millimeters across.