SanArt

Violence, history, amazing architecture … who needs art galleries when you have the castles of North Wales?

There were no art galleries in North Wales when I was growing up – but there was something better. My first experience of great and awe-inspiring works of art was martial. My paintings were battlements, my sculptures towers.

The castles built by Edward I to rule the Welsh did not strike me as imperial enemies planted in the landscape but as places of imagination and romance. Caernarfon Castle with its polyhedral towers beside the slumbering Straits of Menai was self-evidently a colossus of beauty, an architectural masterpiece whose mathematics of straight lines and sharp angles endures its ruin and mirrors the power of the Snowdonian mountains.

Rhuddlan, more sadly wrecked by Civil War cannon, still has a dignified might as it looks down on its river and across the wide plain towards misty mountains. Best of all, though, and my favourite, was Conwy, whose spiral staircases up and down mysterious towers, wide courtyards where you can play at Robin Hood, and best of all its setting on a craggy outcrop above a roiling rivermouth made it as alluring to me as to JMW Turner.

It’s one thing to praise British cathedrals – but if you live in Wales this military medieval heritage is more local, and it is just as exciting.

Some of the greatest artists and architects have designed fortifications: their genius became part of the story of castles. When you visit a church you are hushed, but in a castle you hear the roar of angry voices and clash of arms. A child is more likely to be inspired by a castle than a cathedral. I was. And perhaps more strangely, less familiarly, castles are rule-breaking, inventive, precocious structures that anticipate modernism in surprising, daunting ways.

The dreamy chateaux of France are after all not what most fortresses looked like. Those of Wales were functional as well as aesthetic. The way Conwy arises from its rock, the way Caernarfon’s clipped geometries rebuff assault, these features were designed for functional reasons but possess a savage beauty. Is Caernarfon gothic? Is Conwy? This arty question seems irrelevant in the face of their sublime aggressive strength. In castles, there are no rules, and no limits to fantasy.

Now in its 75th year, the Whitney Biennial is still the big kahuna—the show every American artist wants to be in and every art lover wants to see. This year, the career-boosting show includes no Philadelphia artists. Instead, the curators of this national show sought talent in Chicago, Oregon, Los Angeles and, of course, New York. They rounded up 55 artists and, for the first time, more than half were women. Reflecting our times of war and global recession, the show is a somber parade, sometimes tedious, sometimes achingly beautiful, with a surprising number of photographers and video artists channeling anthropology á la Margaret Mead. It’s a good show—you should see it.

One of several Portland, OR artists in the Whitney Biennial. Storm Tharp, Pigeon (After Shunsen), 2009 Ink, gouache, and colored pencil on paper, 58 x 42 (147.3 x 106.7) Collection of the artist; courtesy PDX Contemporary Art, Portland

But why should you have to travel all the way to New York to see such a high-cailber show? Here’s an idea. Let’s have a Philadelphia Biennial—a large curated show of regional contemporary art hosted by all of our major art museums, organized by museum curators and with a catalog. Though staging a biennial in Philadelphia would be expensive, Whitney’s 75-year track record proves that it can be a lasting investment.

Rocco Landesman, Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), recently spoke at a panel titled “Can the Arts Revive Our Cities and the Nation’s Economy?” Landesman and the other panelists—practitioners from Austin and New Orleans, an academic from Penn and the head of the National Council for the Traditional Arts—all delivered a resounding “Yes, we can.”  (More on that panel in another post. Meanwhile, read Gary Steuer’s post and the Inquirer’s story on the panel.)

The NEA is offering 15 grants of $250,000 to cities (including Philadelphia) to fund bold arts initiatives. Proposing a Philadelphia Biennial is just the kind of move that could win the city that money. PEI (Philadelphia Exhibitions Initiatives, an arm of Pew Trusts) could match that as an initial priming of the money pump locally. But it’s going to take more.

The Whitney Biennial 2010 is sponsored by Deutsche Bank, Tommy Hilfiger, Sothebys, a couple foundations and the Friends Committee of the Whitney Museum. Philadelphia corporations like Comcast, PNC Bank and others could step forward. Local donors and art museum trustees could create a Friends of the Philadelphia Biennial fund.

The exhibit could be at the Institute of Contemporary Art one year; Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts the next; Philadelphia Museum of Art after that. It could be split between the museums and our premier big-box space, the Icebox at Crane Arts Center. There are no rules to break and creative thinking can pull this off.

Biennials, like museum shows in general, are democratic—they are shows for the people. A Philadelphia Biennial would bring the public to contemporary art and educate them about it. In the local art community, people bemoan the lack of educated art consumers in Philadelphia. Buying art is essential to retaining artists here and keeping the arts economy going and growing. Create the Philadelphia Biennial and you will be taking the first step in educating this new group of collectors.

What is needed to make this happen is leadership. Mayor Nutter and art czar Gary Steuer need to get on board and exert political clout. Financial leadership from foundations, the city, universities, corporations and private donors is a necessity.

Who is the audience for the Philadelphia Biennial? It’s the Flower Show attendees—people interested in the city, the arts, beauty and discourse about things that bring joy and meaning to life, that and the thousands of artists, gallerists, collectors, museum professionals and arts lovers in the region.

The Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance’s research shows that people in this region spend twice as much on culture as they do on sporting events—and these same people report more satisfaction from those art events than from sporting events. Give the people what satisfies them—a grand, blockbuster contemporary art show to talk about for months with their friends.

If Whitney can do it, so can we. We have the beginnings of a model for this in Philagrafika 2010, the citywide print festival. It’s risky and it’s going to cost money, but the payback could be huge.

Read this story at Philadelphia Weekly.

John Baldessari, "Beach Scene/Nuns/Nurse (with Choices)", 1991 courtesy Marian Goodman Gallery, New York

Within the first few pages of the season 5 Educators’ Guide, readers are asked to think about the power and influence of juxtaposing images in order to give the viewer very different experiences. In the spirit of John Baldessari, a few of my classes recently embarked on a project to explore how juxtaposition not only has the power to send visual messages, but also has the ability to tell us about ourselves when we create works of art.

Over the course of a few days, I asked students to bring in and collect images they would like to combine in a single artwork. After assembling the images and cropping them a bit, I asked them about the images they selected and what these images said about their interests, their habits and their passions. One student remarked that the images he selected basically described his obsession with money. Another described her images as things connected to food, which is something she loves and finds comfort in. Still another described his images revolving around the work he has done related to environmental issues.

As students assemble their works this week, we will also begin moving into some small-group research exploring how juxtaposition can be used to send messages simply by placing certain images side-by side.

Nancy Spero "Masha Bruskina / Gestapo Victim" 1994, courtesy the artist and Galerie Lelong, New York

Students will be asked to work with partners to research and collect images (fine art reproductions, advertisements, posters, etc.) that send specific messages through juxtaposition. Along with viewing works by John Baldessari, we will be also be looking into works by Yinka Shonibare MBE, Nancy Spero, Kerry James Marshall, and Eleanor Antin.

Creating high quality works of art that are technically proficient can be very satisfying for both the teacher and students, but when we have the opportunity to make students more aware of the images they see and how they relate to larger themes and broader issues, we are teaching students not only how to create works of art but also how to interpret them.

pics:tryharder

MFA Thesis Exhibition:
Kenneth Tam: Casual Encounters
March 1, 2010 – March 6, 2010
Roski School of Arts USC

Ivorypress Art + Books and PaceWildenstein currently present an exhibition that represents a decision by Claes Oldenburg to re-explore a work that he and his wife Coosje van Bruggen had made together in 1990. The show The European Desktop is comprised of a number of sculptures – a shattered desk pad, a quill, an ink pot, a blotter, and postal scales. The European Desktop is the third and final work in a series of theatrical installations that grew out of Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen’s performance with architect Frank Gehry for the 1995 Venice Biennale, Il Corso del Coltello (The Course of the Knife). The first two works in this series were The Haunted House and From the Entropic Library.

Claes Oldenburg & Coosje van Bruggen: The European Desktop / Ivorypress Art + Books, Madrid / Spain. Press Preview, February 16, 2010.

This segment has been realized with the kind support of Turespaña.

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Get Playful: Submit to 6X6

Coming up next with 6X6 is “Play,” to be curated by Submit’>!

Six selections will be shared at this event, scheduled for April 7, 7-8pm @ Ciné Lab’> in Athens, Georgia. Open for submission to anyone from anywhere in the world. Video, film, sound, performance, or combination. Six minutes or less. Shorter can be better! Monthly themes and curators through August 2010. Fast, fun, and free. Be a part of it.

(Watch Video) Didi talks about Play’>

More about Didi Dunphy: Didi Dunphy received an MFA from SFAI in performance and video art. Selected exhibits and installations include, Playscape, COCA, St. Louis, Playscape, Atlanta Contemporary, Let’s Fall in Love, Ivy Brown Gallery, NY, Push Play, Jacksonville Museum of Modern Art, A/D 2004, The Lab, San Francisco, AIM, Armory Center for the Arts, Pasadena, CA, Georgia Triennial, Telfair Museum, GA. Ms. Dunphy also exhibits design objects at the ICFF, NY and CaBoom West Coast Indy Design Show, Santa Monica. A number of features have been written about Ms. Dunphy including Craft, CMYK, Southern Living, as well as reviews in the LA Times, SF Chronicle, Atlanta Journal Constitution, and more. Ms. Dunphy is a visiting Artist and Assistant Professor at the Dodd School of Art, University of Georgia in Athens where she teachings in the time-based arts, contemporary arts and professional practices. She lives in Athens GA with her husband, artist Jim Barsness and 15 year old daughter, Lucy.

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Ballroom Marfa
March 26 – August 15, 2010

In Lieu of Unity brings together artists from Mexico – citizens, residents and emigrants – who have sustained a curiosity about social relations in their art practices. Their focus demonstrates that the nature of existence is contingent not merely on the cognizance of being, but more so on the relationships between individuals and the collectives they form.

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Katharina Grosse
Entwurfsskizze, 12.2009
Studio Katharina Grosse

KVB

Four internationally renowned artists have been chosen to create artistic concepts for the stations of the new North-South Municipal Railway. With this, an art project of international standing will be created, aimed at raising people’s awareness of the city beneath the city.

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© Bettina Brach / Collection Guy Schraenen

la maison rouge
Until 16 May 2010

Vinyl shows a selection of some 800 pieces from the collection of Guy Schraenen. The main of this collection comprises vinyl records and covers by artists, musicians and poets in LP, single and other formats, alongside other sound media (tapes and CDs).

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Armando Andrade Tudela
Marcahuasi, 2009-2010
© Armando Andrade Tudela, 2010

Museu d’Art Contemporani
de Barcelona (MACBA)

This exhibition heralds a new approach to considering the production of work in the setting of the Capella MACBA. All the exhibitions will share the common denominator of having been specifically produced to be shown in this space. The work produced by Armando Andrade Tudela, Peruvian artist living between Berlin and Saint-Étienne (France), includes two 16-mm films (transferred onto DVD) recently made and a wall piece Untitled (Two frames #2) (2010), all framed by an architecture also designed by the artist for the occasion.

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