Radical Women - Alice Neel: Viva la Mujer

Alice Neel lived “concurrent[ly] with the 20th century” and the events she lived through, made a great impact on her work. Today, she is regarded as an activist who painted portraits of minority populations and art world elites alike.

Neel’s paintings are loose and expressive but have a certain truthful frankness to them. In the podcast, Molesworth mentioned that the “history of portraiture” is “one riddled by narcissism, flattery, and patronage”. However, Neel’s paintings depart from this as her portraits rarely depicted conventional beauty. 

Alice Neel, Pregnant Woman, 1971

One of the first aspects pointed out about Neel was that she was a mother as well as an artist. Her paintings also feature mothers and pregnant women. In Pregnant Woman, the subject’s expression is of tired acceptance of her situation rather than elatedness. This and the sickly greens of the paint exemplify the more grotesque aspects of motherhood.

Alice Neel, Andy Warhol, 1970

Before listening to this podcast, I did not know much about Neel. But upon further research, I realized there as one painting I was familiar with, the portrait of Andy Warhol at the Whitney Museum. I always thought this portrait showcased the humanness of Andy Warhol who is a sort of unreachable idol in the art world. His eyes are closed, the scars on his aging chest are exposed and with the soft pastels in the color palette, there is an effect of quietness one would not expect from the explosive career and personality Warhol embodied. 

Alice Neel, Self Portrait, 1980

Neel continued to paint portraits throughout her life and one painting mentioned in the podcast is her Self Portrait in 1980. She is a woman of 80 years of age and that can be seen from her naked sagging flesh and wispy white hair. This portrait epitomizes how unafraid she was of depicting and embracing the imperfections of being human.

David Zwirner's Studio Series: Carol Bove

David Zwirner’s Studio series exhibits online a small selection of images and videos of Carol Bove’s recent work and studies.

Carol Bove’s sculptures are made out of manipulated and crushed steel and scrap metal painted in vibrant colors. The result of this manipulation defies what would commonly be expected of the material. The sculptures’ showcase curves and ripples that emulate water or fabric alongside the clean, straight lines expected of the metallic material.

Carol Bove, The Phoenix Frolics at Cinnabar Hole, 2020

Stainless steel and urethane paint

17 1/8 x 23 3/4 x 27 inches

(43.5 x 60.3 x 68.6 cm)

At first glance, the sculptures seem like models rendered in a 3D modeling program. Models made with said programs can make very believable realistic renderings. These renderings can then also be manipulated to defy expected real-life physics as seen in the works of artists such as Oliver Latta or Esteban Diácono. This defiance of expectation present in Bove’s sculptures is what urges me to draw that parallel. Bove even remarks in a video that “when objects look digital, that turns me on”, indicating that this parallel or reference to the digital is an intentional one. 

Carol Bove, Forlorn Dork, 2020

Stainless steel and urethane paint

14 3/8 x 43 1/4 x 10 1/8 inches

(36.5 x 109.9 x 25.7 cm)

My experience of the sculptures is mediated by a digital platform. That seems to reinforce the reference to digital media in the work and makes me wonder how that experience would differ if I had seen the works first in person. I think what Bove has achieved with the material certainly expands my perception of what is achievable with the physicality of the medium but makes me question why not expand it further than the aesthetics present in popular motion graphics design. 

The Artist Project - Xu Bing: Character Rearrangement

Xu Bing was born in 1955 in China. As a
calligrapher and an artist, he challenged the
perception of knowledge via his mixed media
installation - Book from the Sky (1991). In this
installation, the space is covered with four-volume
treatises in which thousands of meaningless
characters were printed. Xu designed and
handcarved all these Chinese-like characters
although none of them are legible. The contrast
of filled pages and pointless contents push the
viewers to doubt their cognition. According to
Xu, this work seems to upset intellectuals as
many early viewers obsessively wanted to look
for real characters.

Opposite to the Book from the Sky, Xu’s ongoing
work Book from the Ground is meant to be understood
by any readers regardless of their age, race, cultural
background and educational background, as long as
they live in contemporary society. In this book, Xu
collects graphic signs from the public sphere and only
writes with these visual symbols. The commonality in
this book is shared in many cultures. As Xu indicates,
with the widespread use of internet and personal
electronic devices, the rapid growth and development
of the icon language has made the scale of this work
further updated, augmented, and complicated. 30 years
apart, from the Book from the Sky which no one can
understand, to the Book from the Ground which everyone
can understand; Xu’s works reveal a paradoxical yet
complementary idea - his desire for universal language.

Radical Women Podcast - Yoko Ono: A Kind of Meeting Point

Yoko Ono, a Japanese woman with multi titles.

She is a peace activist, a performance artist,

an avant-garde musician and probably her most

famous title: the wife of John Lennon. She was

born in Japan and was raised in the countryside

to avoid World War II. Poverty and hunger are

the base tone of her childhood. She recalls it as

follows: “Lying on our backs, looking up at the

sky through an opening in the roof, we exchanged

menus in the air and used our powers of imagination

to survive.” Hence sky becomes a common element

that you can see in a lot of her works, including the

latest installation PEACE is POWER (2019). This

installation is located in the second floor hallway at

MoMA which the space is covered with blue sky

wallpaper. The title of the work is being translated

into 24 languages and appears across the window of

the hallway.  Ono’s handwriting “ yes, yes, yes” is

being printed on furniture in that space as well. The

message is clear, straight-forward and across the

boundaries of different cultures.

Ono’s childhood significantly influenced her. Her

belief in peace, positivity and unity are values that

are lacking in the time when she grew up, as well

as in the current world. In her early performance

work Cut Piece (1964), Ono set along on the stage

with her finest clothes with a pair of scissors in front

of her. Audiences were instructed to cut a small piece

of fabric from her clothes. At first, people did it hesitantly,

only cutting pieces from the sleeve or the hem of her skirt.

Later, people approached boldly and even cut the strap of

her bra. As the action of the audience got more aggressive,

she remained motionless and expressionless throughout.

Her inaction is an expression of ultimate kindness and

bravery. The work is a statement of pacifism and positivity

as it is in line with the civil rights movement.

Nathaniel Robinson at Magenta Plains- David Zwirner Platform

Nathaniel Robinson at Magenta Plains 

Digital Exhibition courtesy of David Zwirner Platform

Nathaniel Robinson

Untitled, 2020

Oil on canvas

48 x 72 inches (121.9 x 182.9 cm)

After quickly scrolling past Nathaniel Robinsons paintings currently on view at Magenta Plains, I feel no sense of missing out on experiencing these redundant works in person. As a photographer my feelings towards painting are often biased by nature but these works truly fall flat. “A less exciting version of Eddie Arroyo’s paintings on display at the 2019 Whitney Biennale” crosses my mind as a first thought and relevant comparison. Although Untitled, 2020 causes me to briefly reminisce about the view from the fire escape at my former Crown Heights Apartment, it doesn't transcend any newly formed thoughts about our current time and space. It feels to be a waiting moment, similarly felt throughout the mundane elevator rides, surely to be forgotten in our lives. Maybe this is successful in some capacity for certain viewers out there, who knows. 

 Can I imagine the space these paintings fill? Sure. Is it striking or transportive? Maybe. 

My annoyance for this work subsides when viewing Robinsons sculptural work. My attention lasts just a bit longer as I scroll past more dull paintings and am grabbed at with positive curiosity embedded in Robinsons 3-dimensional creations. Installation view of , No One's Things, 2018 transports me back to a washed up version of the Donald Judd exhibition currently on view at Moma. I mean washed up in the best way possible. The bleak colors of old plastic milk juggs and a black tire feel reflective on the banal human experience post-industrialization. Repose 2015 depicts a teal deteriorated domestic home, a more successful attempt to comment on the “...physical shattering of ecosystems…” we have become subject to.

Unlike his paintings, Robinsons sculptures create a world of optimism simultaneously crushed into compact replications of first-hand domestic experiences. My biggest takeaway from the exhibition…. this artist should stick to sculpture

Nathaniel Robinson, 

Repose, 2015, 

pigmented polyurethane resin, 

10.5h x 14w x 14d in.

Radical Woman Podcast- Betye Saar

Group B- Review 2

Radical Woman Podcast- Betye Saar

Betye Saar’s “Black Girl’s Window,” 1969. Her breakthrough work is the focus of an exhibition helping to reopen the new Museum of Modern Art.

Credit...

Betye Saar and Roberts Projects; The Museum of Modern Art

Hold on to your jelly bean. In an archived interview from the Getty Museum, Betye Saar speaks about her intimate experience with a UCLA professor the moment she finally gained an outsider perspective that she indeed is an artist. Given her career took place in the 1960s and ’70s, during the civil rights and feminist movements, it isn't shocking to hear that she had difficulties coming to identify as a female artist while also being a mother. With a background in printmaking and close influence from artist Charles White, Saar's work slowly finds a place in the art world after nearly 40 years, playing in the spaces between art and craft

Saars work analyzes her family's roots and past lives. Her work concerns objects that are often “leftovers of commodity culture”, pulling from traditional assemblage techniques;  exemplary of the influence gained from seeing Joseph Cornells work at the Pasadena Art Museum. In her exhibition, The Legends of Black Girls Window at Moma, there is wall text that reads “Windows, a way of looking out, a way of looking in”. This text parallels the way this podcast depicts Saars world; reference to the past from the present.  Saars work provides evidence of the way material leftovers can have a remade meaning and rebirthed aura. A persistent spirituality pays homage to Saar and her ancestors. 

Gerhard Richter Met Breuer

I found the Gerhard Richter retrospective at Met Breuer to be extremely enlightening. Met Breuer was able to curate a show that spoke to the breathe and reach of Richter’s technique and skill without seeming overwhelming. The scale was impressive but beautifully sparse, pieces respectfully spread between adjacent rooms and floors, the architecture even lending itself to Richter’s forms. The exhibition covered a myriad of interests showing sculpture, photography, drawings, paintings, ect.. As someone largely unfamiliar with his work I was shocked by some of the media he was able tackle that had slipped from mass consciousness.

I was aware of his large abstract pieces such as “Birkenau” and their connection to the Sonderkommando photographs but had never seen the photos themselves. The inclusion of these photographs was a detail I appreciated greatly. The piece descriptions, additions such as these photographs and the work itself all supported each other to form layers upon layers of context, leaving the viewer with an extremely strong perceptive on the life and work of Gerhard Richter. 

Personally I found myself extremely charmed by his foggy landscape paintings. I had no prior knowledge about these paintings so to spot them in the exhibit was a treat. To find something so delicate and well considered associated with the chaos and trauma of Richter’s abstraction was extremely impactful to me. Specifically his depictions of snow and icecaps made me pause for an extended period of time.

In conclusion I found this exhibit to be filled with well positioned and vast in its accumulation of objects and context.

Cornelia Parker at The Met Breuer

Cornelia Parker’s Endless Sugar (2011) at The Met Breuer takes on a unique yet familiar form, with thirty silver sugar bowls flattened and suspended in a line just a few inches off the ground. 

Endless Sugar

The description argues its existence as a “feminist play on Endless Column”, and while the violent alteration of such a domestic object could be seen as some act of rebellion against a woman’s expectations as a housewife, this narrative feels dated. As a response to Endless Column, this piece is successful in subverting the dominant verticality of the original, and can still read as a play off of it despite the difference in materials and forms. 

Constantin Brancusi's Endless Column

The delicacy of the objects’ suspension is a key element to this work, each piece perfectly in line with the next, floating at the same height. This attention to detail allows for the pieces to be read as a collective, despite each piece being separate. With energy flowing smoothly from one object to the next, the viewer follows the horizontal column this piece creates using the same formal properties of repetition and alignment that would lead a viewer’s eyes up Endless Column. The key difference is that Brancusi's work leads a viewer’s eyes upwards, while Endless Sugar makes its viewers look down to the floor, scanning from one end to the other. This tactic of utilizing a downward gaze feels as if it is trying to induce pity in the viewer, as they are looking at these destroyed yet beautiful objects, nearly on the floor. The problem there is that this piece is being framed as a feminist work, and a physical point of view that induces pity should not be tied with feminist ideas. The narratives of the marginalized should be lifted up, not lowered down to ground level. 

Aurèlia Muñoz at MoMA

Aurèlia Muñoz’s Águila Beige (Brown Eagle) is a part of MoMA’s exhibition “Taking a Thread for a Walk”, which highlights the impact and origins of textiles in art. The physical presence of this piece is commanding, despite its location in the corner of the exhibition. 

Panels of jute and sisal compose a suspended, outstretched form that is comparable to a bird with its outstretched wings. Though lacking capacity for flight, the structure feels alive with its limbs free to sway if wind were to blow them. It is just as much fiber art as it is sculptural, with strong architectural influences. By not using a loom, Muñoz created these sculptural textile forms more freely. A sense of world-building comes with this piece, as its structure seems like it was created to engage with the space surrounding it, or that it was draped over some pre-existing structure. Throughout the panels, strong lines are knotted with the fibers which then create corners and angles, paths and intersections for the eye to follow. Despite these architectural qualities, the piece feels intimate due to its approachable scale and natural materiality. The artist’s hand is visible in the work with its subtly imperfect knotting and incongruent design. These details add to the intimacy of the piece, luring its viewers into engaging with the rich history of textile-making that this piece subverts. 

Edited: Radical Women Eva Hesse

In these tragic times, I was grateful to have listened to Eva Hesse speak about art and absurdity. In the recording, when Hesse tries to speak about her work, she avoids speaking about it directly. She’s more interested in noting the need for her to make, and the absurdity in that need. “My whole life has been absurd. Nothing ever was normal. [she chuckles] The extreme traumas—personal, health, family, war, economy, health, sickness, to my art and my working there, school, my personal, friends— That’s just in life. Then in art, it can’t be separated for me, because my life was so extreme. Art being the most important thing for me, rather than like existence, staying alive. And I could never really separate them. And they became close, enmeshed. And absurdity is the key word.”

Hesse’s work is admired all over the world. Similar to Mary Weatherford, her work was something that I copied as a young art student. Hesse’s sculptures were generous in that way, not hard to figure out how it was made. However, it is the essence of the work that can’t be replicated. Her sculptures came from a sincere place, an emotive space that only she can conjure up. Molesworth note that a part of what makes Hesse work so extraordinary is that the art, even though made in the face of her tragic life was never sentimental or hysterical. The work was absurd in its formal conversation and in its gentle demeanor. Hesse’s art has infinite opportunities for interpretation. She was clear about her desire to make something that was truly hers and find her own inner peace amongst the inner turmoil. She knew her work was powerful and didn’t feel the need to find the exact words for it.