Unphotographable: Cordoba

 

Outsider Art: Worlds Apart

Henry Darger

It’s late, the subway’s stopped running and I would love to be in my warm bed. On the way home; my cab driver tells me that he used to design hospitals and airports in his home country of Jordan. Over the years, I’ve also been driven around by an aerospace engineer and the odd medical practitioner. I’m not saying all cab drivers are exiled professionals at the mercy of  archaic  immigration laws, but perhaps the person that’s saving you a very long walk may be a whole lot more than you initially gave them credit for. There might be a lot more to the person we find ourselves sharing a cab with, taking the bus or passing in the hall. Our preconceived notions of worth and merit wrapped up in casual interactions can act as horse-blinders. They only allow us to view what we want to acknowledge and may prevent us from seeing a whole other world right under our noses.

This theme is perfectly illustrated in Jessica Yu’s documentary: In the Realms of the Unreal the Mystery of Henry Darger.  In 1973,  in a one bedroom apartment on Chicago’s north side an entire alternative universe was discovered. No one in the apartment complex had the slightest notion that they had been living so close to an artistic genius. The artist himself I’m sure was also unaware of this fact. For Henry Darger, this was just how he spent his time; he lived in an alternative reality.

He constructed his world from newspaper clippings, children’s books, catalogues and any other visual resource he could acquire  He was a self-taught artist who copied, transferred, painted and collaged  massive compositions (some were over 10 feet wide) together. The watercolour paintings were mostly illustrations for an epic tale he was writing that was close to 19 000 pages. Henry Darger was telling the story of the Vivian Girls, but Henry was telling it to no one but himself.  His life’s work was only discovered after his death when his landlord had to clean up his apartment. In the Realms of the Unreal tells the story of this discovery and does its best at shedding light on a solitary man who lived like a hermit (only two photographs of Henry exist). The documentary also brings the story of the Vivian Girls to life with a series of readings from the book set to animations of his paintings. The tale of the Vivian Girls revolves around a group of young sisters who are forced into slavery by a tyrannical group of adults all dressed like civil war soldiers.The world he has left us is utterly beautiful, naive and fascinating without a shred of irony.

Mark Hogancamp

Mark Hogancamp: the subject of Jeff Malmberg’s documentary Marwencol also approaches his art with an unfiltered eye. Like Darger, Hogancamp has created his very own world that acts as both an escape and creative outlet. Marwencol is the name of the town that is the setting for a story populated by World War II soldiers, Nazis and Barbies.

Mark Hogancamp was the victim of a vicious beating at the hands of 5 men. He sustained severe brain damage in the attack and had to relearn even the simplest of tasks from reading, writing to walking. He slowly recovered but was still haunted by the events of that night. Marwencol is his way of coping. It addresses the horror and the beauty of his experience and his fantasy.

The first thing that captures your attention about this film are  his photographs. They are extraordinary at how naturalistic the gestures of his subjects are . Mark is a self-taught photographer who plays with dramatic lighting, depth of field and surprising compositions, all the while telling a dramatic narrative. He painstakingly sets the stage with mail order replicas that represent real people in his life. The documentary provides a touching biography of a man who’s world was taken away from him so he had to create his own alternative. He is now in danger of that happening again when the art world learns of his talent and comes calling to steal it all away.

Both documentaries do a wonderful job of pulling the curtain back on complete and unique worlds created by a couple of self-taught outsiders. Their art was made for no one but themselves, without the self conscious hang-ups of a consumer society. Their societies exist outside the confides of the everyday and luckily for us someone took the time to remove their horse-blinders and take a look.

The Realms of the Unreal 4/5

Marwencol 3.5/5

Drawing with Light

affectionately yours      2010

Patti Smith and Michael Snow at the AGO

432101234 Michael Snow 1969

I had an hour or so to kill before I was to meet up with some friends so I decided to nip into the Art Gallery of Ontario to catch the new Patti Smith:Camera Solo show along with Michael Snow’s Objects of Vision. Both shows deal with the act of seeing: one from the point of view of an admirer and the other from a steely veteran who is adept at what he does.

Patti Smith by Robert Mapplethorpe

I started with Patti Smith : Camera Solo. Better known for her music career and position as punk rock pioneer; Smith is as always the consummate artist. Her approach to photography feels both detached and autobiographical at the same time. Her Polaroids  read like a mix-tape of her muses and influences documenting the objects of her heroes. The photographs become still-lifes of things which have been transformed and elevated just by who their owner’s were. We see the bed in which Frida Kahlo spent her final months, Virginia Wolf’s cane and Herman Hesse’s typewriter among others.

Herman Hesse Typewriter

The photographs themselves are straightforward closeups of the objects. The telling nature of the artist was engaging but sometimes the pictures themselves appear blurry with very little contrast.  In the end, the best photograph in the bunch belonged to Robert Mapplethorpe. I applaud Smith for constantly redefining who she is: first by her writing and now with her photography but sometimes you want to see someone who is a master at their craft.

Abitibi 1969

Michael Snow’s Objects of Vision is a collection of sculptures executed from the 60’s through the 80’s that reflect an artist who is in complete control of his materials and in turn his audience. This one room installation is endlessly inventive. Everything works both in isolation and in unison. All the objects challenge the viewer in how they perceive and look at  them as well as draw attention to the act of seeing itself. The center piece of the show is a suspended tree branch that transforms from a rough natural texture to a smooth polished needle-like point. It commands your attention and directs your vision in a delightful yet menacing manner. Blind from 1968 does a wonderful job of filtering space through layers of physical ‘cross-hatched’ fencing. The piece Abitibi lets us witness the act of creation frozen in time. Two pieces of wood compressed and bolted together force a layer of resin to ooze then harden from it seams.

Transformer 1982            Blind 1968        Michael Snow

Michael Snow makes it look easy, but don’t be fooled that it is. This is a show about perception after all, so we should probably take another look.

Patti Smith: Camera Solo -February 9th – May 19th, 2013

Michael Snow: Objects of Vision- July 18, 2012 – March 17th, 2013

Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera at the AGO

We are entering the final week of the blockbuster show Frida & Diego: Passion, Politics and Painting at the Art Gallery of Ontario. The show ran from October 20th to January 20th. The AGO has been on a hot streak lately with great exhibits: such as last summer’s riveting Picasso show, the Abstract Expressionist show  picked from the collection of the MOMA as well as future shows that include early Renaissance works from Florence and an Ai Weiwei exhibit coming this summer. My excitement and anticipation for Ai Weiwei is high. My feelings going into the current exhibit towards Frida and Diego were luke warm at best. I wouldn’t count either artist as personal favourites of mine, but I can recognize their talent and importance to the artistic canon. Art is a thing best experienced in person, so I felt that I couldn’t honestly have an accurate opinion of them if I didn’t see the works in the flesh. So I went to the AGO for the paintings, was indifferent about the politics and stayed for the passion.

The art of these two individuals will always be inseparably intertwined. You can’t mention one without the other. They were lovers, friends, teacher and student, husband and wife, rival and combatant and mentor and muse. In the end the muse became the master and one of the most recognizable woman artists of the 20th century. When they met, Diego Rivera was already considered one of Mexico’s greatest artists. Frida Kahlo was twenty years his junior. Diego was a communist, a man of the people,  and his medium of choice was large scale murals that were intended to stir the passions of their viewers. He had received formal art training in Europe. He lived in Paris for a time where he was influenced by the cubists and the paintings of Paul Cézanne.

Still life in Oval 1916

The first room of the exhibit is dedicated to the European works. Diego had very little trouble mastering the principles of Modernism. His cubist influences favoured Juan Gris more so than Picasso or Braque. His landscapes were direct appropriations of Cézanne. This would turn out to be my favourite room of Diego’s work. I am a big fan of Modernism and Diego does it well, but at the end of the day, no one does Cézanne better than Cézanne. It did however give the proper context to the rest of his work.

Calla Lilly Vendor 1943

Other rooms followed examining his mural work and easel paintings. There were  some beautiful charcoal drawings as well as reproductions, photographs and short films on view. Reproductions don’t interest me much when I go see an exhibition. They can’t compete with the actual artworks. If I’m interested; I can track down these things outside the gallery and I find them a waste of time. Time that can be better spent with the actual artworks themselves. The Lily paintings are quite alluring in the flesh but some of his other easel paintings left little impression. Frida on the other hand….

My Nurse and I 1937

Frida Kahlo on the other hand leaves a large impression. Unlike Diego, she was self taught. Her technique is strong but never flashy. Her paintings both disturb and intrigue. They teeter on the over emotional and melodramatic edge but are pulled back at the last minute before they plunge into sheer ridiculousness. (Many of today’s pop stars could learn a thing or two from this kind of restraint.) Frida had a lot of demons to exercise. Her life was unfortunately full of pain. As a young woman she was involved in a horrific bus accident that left her body broken and infertile. These afflictions would follow her throughout the rest of her life. Her marriage was filled with infidelity; at one point Diego left her for her own sister. She portrays these incidents with dark images:  cutting her hair off, sliced open and on display and being riddled with pins and nails. I don’t love these paintings, I think she makes that an impossibility. You’re not meant to love them, but rather respect the place they come from. I’m more drawn to her strait forward self-portraits which there were many.

self-portrait with monkeys 1943

Her presence is undeniable. This was most evident when the exhibition hung Diego beside Frida. During their lifetime Diego was the star and Frida was in the background. After their deaths the fame of Frida  began to grow. This was helped in part by people like Madonna who started to collect her in the eighties and movies like Frida starring Selma Hayek in 2002. Hanging side by side on the gallery walls Frida Kahlo seems to eclipse Diego Rivera. It is painfully evident when faced with the same subject matter. In the same room hang two still-lifes with watermelon as a central theme. Diego’s is easily forgotten while Frida’s rendition brims with life, pattern and narration.

The Bride Who Becomes Frightened When She Sees Life Opened 1943

The exhibition was well put together with a nice array of art and documentation. In the end, I was drawn as much to the photographs as I was the paintings. My favourite being the one that appears at the top of this post. It shares it’s lightness with a sense of darkness. A baby deer in one hand and a cigarette in the other. Every photo is accompanied by that unflinching stare. It as though she looks straight through you. Frida Kahlo is an unconventional beauty whose air of confidence has an intoxicating quality. After viewing the exhibition,  my appreciation for Frida Kahlo grew. Diego didn’t hold up as well in this context, when placed so close to a burning flame you will in-evidently end up in the shadows.

World in my Eyes: Chicago

The last time I was in Chicago they were cleaning Sunday Afternoon on The Island of La Grande Jatte by Seurat. It was the only time in The Art Institute of Chicago’s history (after acquiring the work) that it was not on display. Needless to say, I was more than a little disappointed. I knew I had to come back and see it with my own eyes. I believe you need to be in the presence of an artwork to truly appreciate it. In the age of the reproduction, there is nothing like the real thing and I must say Georges did not disappoint and neither did the rest of Chicago.

The home of the skyscraper is truly a feast for the eyes. It’s public art is second to none in North America, with works by Calder, Miro, Dubuffet, and Picasso among others. One of the greatest pieces of public art to ever been created in my opinion would be Anish Kapoor‘s Cloud Gate.  It appeals to everyone. Children and adults are drawn to it. It reflects its environment while completely asserting its individuality within the environment. The viewer sees themselves in the experience of interacting with art when they stand near it. The residents of Chicago have given it the affectionate nick-name ‘The Bean’ that talks to its pleasing shape. It is the perfect ambassador for public art.

Public art can easily be dwarfed by its surroundings, but Chicago gets it right every time. The buildings in Chicago are pieces of art on to themselves. A wonderful example of this is Jeanne Gang’s Aqua completed in 2010. The closer you get to it the more interesting it becomes. Everywhere you look in Chicago reveals another building marvel. Just outside of the center of town Frank Lloyd Wright made his home in Oak park where he changed his neighborhood and then the history of architecture with his ‘Prairie’ style. The walking tour is a great way to spend the afternoon.

* The idea for the ‘reflection photos’ came about by accident. A few years back while visiting the Eiffel Tower, my wife snapped a picture of me with the glasses on and we discovered that you could see the tower. We try to snap a couple of shots everywhere we go and hopefully it will turn into a fun series over the years. I totally encourage others to get in on the idea. All you need is a pair of mirrored shades, a camera and a little sense of adventure. People tend to stare at you funny when you’re wearing shades in a gallery. Document your travels and world as reflected by your eyes. Please keep me posted, I would love to see the results.

Hippolyta: Mix

sparklers on the beach

Some music for the weekend.