by Jean Marie Carey | 20 Oct 2013 | Art History, German Expressionism / Modernism
I cannot explain better what 18 of the 21 photographs above are better than the Haus der Kunst press release about this very subject, so here it is, partially ellipsed for brevity:
Manfred Pernice ... will create an expansive, accessible installation consisting of various, often "recycled" works. The artist is interested not only in the reusing of found objects and materials of various origins, but also, what is more remarkable, he uses his own earlier works as architectural elements for new works or as installation pieces in altered contexts of meaning. Pernice's planned intervention for Haus der Kunst's central Middle Hall relates directly to the space's architecture and consists of two main elements: Pernice will place his architectural sculpture "Tutti" from the year 2010 in the middle of the room. A spiral staircase leads up to the sculpture's roof. From there, via a second staircase, the visitor reaches a bridge, which spans the Middle Hall and from which visitors can continually view the room from new perspectives. For the bridge, the artist will develop an installation, which, as a result of the work process, will evolve on site. This form of spontaneous response to the spatial conditions is characteristic of Pernice's sculptural approach.
My friend who came with me to the opening exclaimed more succintly: “Mager! Ich mochte lieber sehen…”
Additionally, the director of HdK, Okwui Enwezor (who is having a cusp birthday this week), described Pernice’s work as an “intervention in the global crisis of modernity.”
The artist and sponsors (the Friends of Haus der Kunst) also spoke at length about the sculptural installation, which seems to suggest they realize that even for HdK regular patrons it requires some type of backgrounding. I give HdK a lot of credit for trying out global-art-fair-type works in its austere central hall and for the integration (too seamlessly really) into the “renovation.”
Having just been in six airports in six days, the kind of indistinguishable elevations, chutes, and stopping spaces of those reminded me of Tutti IV in sort of a vague “I’m tired” (not “I’m aware of phenomenology) way. I think maybe also for people living in München the trappings of renovation – with both the Lenbachhaus and the Pinakothek der Moderne having recently reopened – plus the endless “installations” of scaffolding and rerouting at the Hauptbahnhof and Marienplatz – are part of the normal whirring scenic backdrop of the city.
by Jean Marie Carey | 12 Oct 2013 | Art History, German Expressionism / Modernism, LÖL, Re-Enactments© and MashUps, Stuff Found in Library Books
The Blue Flask: A Story Told in Text Message
Pt. 1
A few nights ago, I had a dream in which one of the key objects later appeared in physical form during the day. I thought this was a bit unusual, in that the object, while quotidian, is not something you would see every day, let alone find on the street…
The object is this: a blue thermos type aluminum flask. The dream was actually a fragment of memory about something that had actually happened: a battle of petty ecological one-uppersonship and unintentionally amusing symbolism. Seeking to appear both more recycly than thou and also make a statement of personal taste, this guy had dispensed with plastic water bottles for a flask that looked exactly like the one in the picture, except I am sure minus the millions of microbes. The guy’s sort of but not really rival, a female, at the first opportunity produced her own personal power statement water bottle, ornately patterned in some sort of pink, green, and brown-over aluminum paisley. Also, this bottle was significantly larger.
Because I was in fourth grade (not really it was only a few years ago), and had a clear line of sight to the bottle duel, I poorly concealed some giggling. Observing this my friend across the room looked at me questioningly, whereupon I silently pointed out the comparison. My friend also began quietly laughing, and later, in another location, we both laughed quite a bit.
This was a tiny episode in a sprawling “big fish”-type saga, and I have not thought about it in some time, until this week when someone brought to my attention the names of both bottle-owning individuals, reunited for a charity affair, a telethon to benefit the humorless…J/K those last two phrases.
Pt. 2
The dream about the bottle was very fleeting, and it was about the incident, and then I dreamed about other unrelated stuff. But when I woke up I could see those bottles through my lashes before I quite opened my eyes. IKR! But it was a dream.
Pt. 3
Later the day of the morning/night of the dream, I went to the Bayerische StaatsBibliothek. This is not unusual, I go there almost every day. What is unusual is to see a blue aluminum water bottle wedged into the space between a windowsill and a window on the second floor in a rarely used reading room (and in fact by a window that is rarely opened since it is always winter). Instead of fleeing in distress I leaned out over the parapet and window frame and fished the bottle in with the help of my scarf. I brought it home and I still have it, figuring that like in The Grudge there is no point in getting rid of it since it has already located me. Even though I can drink as much Löwenbrau Triumphator as anyone in my adopted kingdom I don’t like to carry glass bottles around because I am afraid they will break when I inevitably drop them, so maybe I will use this flask to transport beer during Wies’n – the most fun it will ever have in all of its lives.
The Blue Flask: Postscript
The blue flask/dream incident last week was one of a series of very strange things that have happened to me this year, so though it was “haunting,” I didn’t freak out. While I was in the library, I remembered suddenly that I wanted to check out The Author of Himself, the autobiography of Marcel Reich-Ranicki. I got the book and have been reading it instead of packing. On Friday it was reported that Ranicki had died after a long illness.
by Jean Marie Carey | 1 Sep 2013 | Animals, Animals in Art, Art History, Franz Marc, German Expressionism / Modernism
Der Spiegel online had a story today about an art restorer’s amazing discovery of a new Franz Marc painting on the reverse of 1913’s Blauen Fohlen. Sigrid Pfandlbauer of the Kunsthalle Emden found the study of two cats bearing Marc’s signature while restoring Blauen Fohlen for an upcoming exhibition. What an incredible, exciting discovery…how much there is still to be learned about Marc.
by Jean Marie Carey | 20 Aug 2013 | Art History, Franz Marc, German Expressionism / Modernism, LÖL
Postkarte am Bubi, Franz Marc and Auguste Macke, 1911. This looks like mostly AM really. I love the way the feathers become the fish…
“We actually had many more exciting exchanges back-and-forth, most of which were very unproductive and very unbecoming of two grown men.” LÖL.
by Jean Marie Carey | 15 Aug 2013 | Animals, Animals in Art, Art History, Re-Enactments© and MashUps
This post was actually written quite some time ago and held in reserve with about 50 other little stories under the title “Grendel’s Mother Doesn’t Have a Name!” which is now the title of a book chapter. It is actually only a little confusing, and also my devotion to pinnipeds remains unswerving.
I was inspired to revisit by sequential experiences, the first running across an adorable video of a sea otter playing a sort of tag with an Australian cattle dog. The sea otter is clearly enjoying himself, and as I watched him woof softly as he partially clambered up onto a dock, I heard myself think “…er lacht…” followed by a moment of confusion and then thinking… “… was ist das auf Englisch?” For a second I couldn’t think of the words. I have had a few fragmentary dreams in German, but this is the first time anything like this has ever happened in regular life. It was actually very pleasant and I hope it will begin to happen more often.
The other addition to this post is this image of this astounding statue watching over Hohenzollernplatz. It was made by Ferdinand Liebermann in 1930 and has withstood a lot. This is a very evocative image naturally and also reminds me of the moschophoros, which in turn puts me in mind of Knabe Mit Lamm and the poor unfortunate kids…(just a tiny image here because a whole story is coming along about this painting).
by Jean Marie Carey | 23 Jul 2013 | Art History, German Expressionism / Modernism
Danaé Xynias’s “Weite Fluren” is a good match for the Orangerie.
In framing the composition of a landscape painting, the challenge to the image maker, following eons of tradition, comes down fundamentally to where to place the horizon line. Contemporary painters have toyed with this problem experimentally, such as in Colin McCahon’s various large-panel installations of volcanic vistas in New Zealand. At the far reaches of these modern manifestations falls Trevor Paglen’s Covert Operations and Classified Landscapes (2010) presenting the horizon as, also, metaphorically unreachable. To sort of put things back into perspective, so to speak, Danaé Xynias makes the brave choice to return to the subject of landscape painting – the meeting of land (or water) and sky – allowing the horizon line to settle for the most part naturally in the center of her canvases.
Xynias’s current exhibition, “Weite Fluren,” is a mixture of landscapes and stylized still-lifes. (The still-lifes are certainly interesting in their own right, with rounded forms of pumpkins and melons against a zero-depth background intensifying the relationship between subject and frame.)
A reference in the catalog for the show marks an oblique historical lineage by referencing both Caspar David Friedrich and Jacob van Ruisdael, demurring that Xynias doesn’t quote them directly. This is true, though particularly the low clouds often associated with the van Ruisdael family are a clear evocation of the past. Make no mistake though Xynias is strictly a modernist, in the sense that her facture is very clean, the painted surface entirely flat and removed from the content in careful application. The space Xynias makes reference to in the exhibition title is obviously something that is of keen interest in its totality to the painter, a graduate of the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf who practices in a remote studio in Niederbayern. “Weite Fluren” is luminous in its incarnation at the Orangerie in the Englischer Garten, the classicizing space with the summer-lush exterior always at the peripheral always in view. The show is hung simply, without name markers as a distraction, with the larger landscapes singly or in groups slightly above eye-level, making visitors have to look “up” into the skies of the paintings.
