An Adventure in Louisville

Song of the Day: The Gossip Pop Goes the World


Over the Spring Break, a wonderful friend and I spent a day with another exploring a couple of art galleries in Louisville. One was the Speed Art Museum and the other was 21C.

If you live in Kentucky and love art and you haven't been here then 

SHAME ON YOU!!

If you haven't heard of 21C you must check it out.  It is a fantastic place that both functions as a contemporary art gallery as well as a hotel.  They have a few permanent works including Text Rain by Camille Utterback and Romy Achituv  and the Red Penguin (2005) made by the Cracking Art Group, but they also exhibit new displays frequently.  At this moment the main exhibit is called Cuba Now.  One artist Carlos Gaamez de Francisco, who is currently on display, you must check out.  Both my friend and I loved these works in this display primarily because how they reflect a historical imagery as reflected in both traditional and new methods of presentation.

I studied these works in order to learn how he somehow strategically stained the paper to make that pattern. Still sadly is a mystery, although I have a few theories in mind. 

Another artist the two of us were impressed by was Julius Fridman's collection of graphic photography called Emergence.  This Louisville artist uses as the gallery describes "a harmonious blend of digital layering and nude portraiture that suggests a non-representational reading of photographic image. By incorporating abstract designs, scenes from nature, hieroglyphics or tribal symbols, Friedman is able to blur the lines of portraiture rendering his nude models almost unrecognizable."  I love it that this work was also his first time he used of the human figure for a series. (I am so tired of the overuse of direct portraiture to some extent partly because Facebook and other social networking internet resources)
   

Although a little out of the way, this collection is a must see right now at 21C 

We also spent the rest of our day exploring a more traditional museum, the Speed Art Museum. Currently the Speed has three wonderful exhibits alongside what is found in their permanent collection.  When you walk in you'll step into a world of Impressionist prints.

Check back to one of my February posts if your interested in learning out our Permanent Collection's Renoir Print. 

The mini-exhibit, called Light to Line: Impressionism Prints, shows a great example of Impressionist experimentation in another medium, including key artists like Mary Cassatt, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and Edouard Manet.  Another is Modern in the Making: Design 1900-2000. For those interested in the evolution of the design of furniture and ceramics should check it out.  Additionally, they have a paid exhibition called Impressionism Landscapes: Monet to Sargent as organized by the Brooklyn Museum in their lower level. If you love Impressionist paintings this is a must to check out.  They also have an exhibit of photographs by Steven Shore in this collection.  These are photographs of Giverny, Monet's home and place of inspiration for some of his most revered paintings.

This collection was especially expansive on American Impressionism

If you haven't been to any local galleries be sure to check them out.  They often have great exhibits that change pretty regularly.  Exploring different styles of galleries helps you contemplate both where you are and where you are going, whether by making art or by writing a paper. So be sure to take one day off and just go on a gallery hop every once in a while. 


I can't wait to head back to Louisville myself in a few weeks in order to hear the art historian Linda Nochlin speak. If I enough time afterwards, a good trip down to Museum Row might be a welcome excursion.  (I've been dying to see the Frazier International Museum, especially with the Toystalgia: The Good The Bad and the Cuddly exhibit.)   


Image citation:
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/03/07/travel/031107-21c-hotel-museum-exterior.395.jpg
21C http://www.21cmuseum.org/museum/Default.aspx
Speed http://www.speedmuseum.org/exhibitions/

One Blur of a Week

  Song of the Day: My Body by Young the Giant

I know this blog is in need of another post, so here is a brief one. Currently, this semester has been rough for me, but I will try to keep my posting as regular as I can.  

I promise you I've been harder at work than the Owl in this Hiroshige print

          A number of weeks ago, a professor of mine has lead me to an interesting video resource:http://www.artbabble.org/video/getty-museum/conserving-old-master-drawings-balancing-act.

          Although I am not really qualified to perform this procedure on any of the works in the collection I still like how informative this video is.  Resources like this allow one to learn more about the terminology and the tools that are involved within this field. (For instance this is a great visual example of what foxing is, little brown spots and how it is mold that is physically growing on the a work.) 

          One of my tasks involves researching and organizing gathered information about various individual works in the collection. For some works, this appears for me as a daunting task. However, I feel already that I have accomplished a lot and that I now have a clear direction ahead of me. (You could say that I finally figured out how to swim so that I am not floundering so much.  This is better late than never.)  

           As Caple suggests, from one of my primary texts mentioned in my first post, “there is need always to investigate objects closely to ensure that an accurate picture of the past (history) is derived rather than a modern day fiction” (21). To give the work justice, one needs to read and learn as much about the work as they can and present it in a way that justly represents the piece. For most works this may involve making the work look as the day that it was recently created. This may involve more drastic procedures such as what is performed in this video.  Where "[t]he goal of conservation isn't to make the drawing look new again rather it is to safely remove the damage that distracts from the design and bring the sheet closer to the artist's original intent.” During the time of this internship, I hope to research and compile together the necessary information needed to determine what the work needs done to it.  This in order to create something that someone could work with and take to the next level.  

           This coming Wednesday, at five, I will be making a brief in-progress presentation about the work I have been working on this semester. So if you’re interested in watching me squirm from my speech making nerves just give me the heads up for further details.  You can also give me any possible suggestions for improvement that I am open for. In addition, if you have any other visual resources that you think I would find interesting be sure to comment.

             Be sure to keep your eyes peeled for some future blog posts including a research post about the Hiroshige prints and a Kentucky Primitive.   In addition, Conservation Week is the Week of April 24th. (Also known as my birthday week.) Be sure to keep your eyes open for more information in the near future.

Image Source: http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2009/04/22/arts/20090422_hiroshige_slideshow_4.html

Happy Birthday Brancusi

Song of the Day: Loops Haunt Dusk Mechanics (Samoyed Mix)

Today is Constantin Brancusi's 135th birthday, and to celebrate it Google has changed its logo:

The logo that I saw while I was web surfing through Google

Brancusi has been one of my favorite modern sculptor for his simplicity and minimalism. Although his early influences include Rodin, Brancusi simplified his style to its basic abstractions creating works that revel only the essentials. Looking for the essentials should be a key task for my internship this semester.  I need to learn to look beyond the clutter and to create an organized system that I can follow.   

Happy Birthday Brancusi! 

Mademoiselle Pogany, 1912

Image citation:

http://www.popherald.com/brancusi-constantin-google-doodle/5019

http://www.nga.gov/exhibitions/2001/modernart/7_fs.htm

Observation: How working in an Art Gallery can be like a scavenger hunt

Working behind the scenes in an art gallery is like playing a game of scavenger hunt.  There are days when you have maps, or records, that tell you exactly where the treasure, or object in question, is.  Then there are other days where you are forced to work with various clues that might in the end take you nowhere.   One could argue that this is because the worker is unorganized.  However, I would beg to differ.  Sometimes the worker has to deal with so much information coming in from excessive amounts of sources. Imagine cleaning your room, and every other day you get a new package of books or random things that you have to store in your room as well.  It might get chaotic pretty fast.* Imagine this chaos in organizing on a grander scale.  Any museum would have thousands upon thousands of objects that they must work with.  Many of which has their own histories, functions and burdens that one would have to take account of.  Diving through the physical and digital information can turn into an epic adventure leading to a "mysterious holy grail."**

Working within an art gallery is no different.  One must take into account all the works and there history as well as their supposed location.  In some instances, objects seem to travel on their own accord to wherever they wish to go.  

Therefore, one needs to put on her explorer's hat and keep her eyes open during the elusive journey through the information jungle.       

One of my favorite movie series of all time. 

Nothing beats historical fiction, adventure and a really great hat 

*To me those people that are always tidy and organized are rare and unnatural, or in the very least dedicated to their cause  

**What I mean is finding something fantastic that you would have never thought you would have discovered

Song of the Day: Mike Posner Please Don't Go