April 4, 2008

Miracles on the border

During my trip to Austin last week, I managed to find time to hit a few art galleries. The Mexic-Arte Museum on Congress is featuring an exhibit called The Huge and the Small, where several pieces caught my eye. The exhibit mixes large and small works, including Gustavo Monroy's "Totem," a large five-pieces work that appears to be a meditation on the Garden of Eden myth

On the small side of the equation, I flashed back to some of the tiny Dutch paintings I saw in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. Xavier Esqueda's "La Fertilidad Incipiente" was excellent and I really liked an ipod piece by Jose Antonio Hernandez Vargas. It was called "A Negra," and featured a swirl of flies buzzing around the screen of a video ipod forming the letter A. It was the music playing in the background that first drew me to it. Never figured out what it was, though. Haunting. Or maybe hypnotic is a better description.

And then I drifted into an exhibit called "Retablos: Miracles on the Border." Great stuff. The retablos are done on wood or metal by people who want to thank a saint for a miracle. The retablos range from the poignant to the rough-hewn. My favorite told the story of a man who petitioned St. Michael the Archangel so the documents for his pickup truck would come through. The retablo, on metal with spots of rust showing through, thanks the saint for interceding and ensuring the paperwork was delivered. Behind the steering wheel of a pickup truck sits the petitioner, a pleased smile on his face.

There were numerous retablos of this sort. It was amazing to drift through them and read these people's tales of personal miracles, many of which were tied to immigration to the U.S. from Mexico.

The museum itself is strange in a good way. It's small, almost claustrophobic, with low ceilings that often forced me to duck lights when I was standing in front of the retablos. It has a very cool gift shop that managed to liberate a few dollars from me. Definitely worth checking out if you happen to drift through Austin ...

Posted by Bob Benz at 5:38 PM | Comments (0)

February 18, 2007

Best in show ...

A Portland art gallery celebrated the Westminster Dog Show with its own take on canines, asking artists to do their interpretations of various breeds in what it is calling the Wurstminster Dog Show.

I liked Driscoll Reid's Newfoundland so much that I purchased it. And I almost bought a really, really strange take on the Maltese by Jason Vivona. When I e-mailed the link to Lara, she responded with a terse: "I don't want that." Hmm. Maybe I need to reconsider. It certainly captures the psychedelic nature of Mully the Maltese ...

Posted by Bob Benz at 6:23 PM | Comments (0)

March 18, 2006

Munch-y business

During a recent trip to New York, I managed to escape business long enough to check out an exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art: "Edvard Munch: The Modern Life of the Soul." Phenomenal.

Everyone knows the Scream, Munch's most popular work. But that represents only one side of his art. Some of his stuff is very erotic, and there are plenty of angst-ridden pieces, too.

I particularly liked his portrait of Ibsen in a Cafe, his Madonna 1895-1902 and the three-painting series The Kiss, where the lovers dissolve into each other over the course of the three works. Very nice.

While there, I drifted through the entire collection. A few pieces that popped out at me:

• Dana Schultz's "Presentation." Very odd and disturbing. Almost seemed like a piece that could be produced by a Latin American artist ...
• Francis Bacon's Painting. 1946. Not hard to see the post-war vibe ripping through this one. The meat imagery also appeals to the inner Atkins-ite in me.

Posted by Bob Benz at 10:42 AM | Comments (1)

February 6, 2005

Getting abstract ...

During a recent business trip to New York City, I stopped by the Museum of Modern Art for an afternoon. Talk about time well spent.

The museum recently reopened after an extensive renovation. The renovation has been panned in several sources, but it worked fine for me. I was more focused on the art, though I have to admit the architecture wasn't all that impressive, with perhaps one cool feature: There's a central open space that allows you to stand on the third and fourth floors and look down on the Marron Atrium, where Monet's "Reflections of Clouds on the Water Lily Pond" dominates the space. It was really cool to see it from each level and then to go down into the atrium for an up-close look.

There's so much there to marvel at that I drifted through the galleries for a few hours. A few highlights were Picasso's "Girl Before a Mirror" and David Alfaro Siqueiros' "Collective Suicide," which reminded me vaguely of a few pieces we own by the Jamaican Rastafarian artist Guilty.

But overall, I was most impressed by the abstract expressionists, especially Kandinsky's colorful works. Also, seeing a photo of Jackson Pollack's art just doesn't do it justice. His work fills entire walls with intense complexity. Great stuff.

Now playing: Largo from "Winter," Op. 8, No. 4, RV297 from The Four Seasons from the album "Vivaldi's Cello" by Yo-Yo Ma, Ton Koopman & Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra

Posted by Bob Benz at 8:20 PM | Comments (0)

November 30, 2004

Airport art ...

I spend way too much time in the Atlanta airport. During my frequent layovers and connections, I've started walking between concourses rather than taking the train. It's good exercise and it clears my head before I sardine into the next Delta can that I have to fly in.

On several occasions, I've walked between the A and B concourses, where there's an incredible collection of stone sculpture by Zimbabwean artists. It's great stuff and a wonderful way to kill some time. Even if you're in a bit of a hurry, it's great to dash past these sculptures. Great stuff ...

Posted by Bob Benz at 8:34 PM | Comments (2)

February 16, 2004

Tesoros Modernos ...

We went to the San Antonio Museum of Art yesterday to see Tesoros Modernos (Modern Treasures), a collection of Latin American masterpieces from the Monterrey collection. It was impressive and included a lot of artists I wasn't familiar with and a few I was. I think my favorite was Alejandro Colunga's "La Muerta de un Loco." Very dark, even disturbing. They also had a piece by Diego Rivera, something from his Cubist period, and a work by Orozco, whom I've always liked.

We took our friend Anita's six-year-old with us, and as we drifted through the gallery, Emma's pink, glitter-splattered shoes clicked across the marble floors in staccato bursts.

"That's pretty," the tap-dancing art critic decreed.

More clicking. "That looks like nothing," she said, standing in front of Cesar Paternosto's "Inti," which is basically an orange canvas with orange rectangles on it.

Then more clicking, and a slip.

"These floors feel like butter."

Emma's antics definitely made the exhibit more fun.

Overall, I really was impressed by the museum. It's one of the best I've been to, probably because it caters to Latin American art. After we looked at Tesoros Modernos, we went through the Nelson Rockefeller Center for Latin American Art. It's an awesome collection that includes pre-Columbian, revolution era and modern works. Several nice pieces by Rivera and Orozco, including Orozco's "Martirio de San Esteban I." It features Saul watching as St. Stephen is stoned to death, suggesting a link to what the church was doing during World War II while Jews were dying in concentration camps. Very moving.

The folk art section also was great. They had molas from the Kuna Indians and lots of Day of the Dead stuff.

I came across one piece that I really liked, though I'm not sure how to categorize it other than to call it contemporary. It had a Pop Art feel to it. It was Enrique Changoya's "Les Adventuras Des Cannibales Des Moderinistas." I made a mental note to look up Changoya and see some of his other work.

Posted by Bob Benz at 12:24 PM | Comments (0)