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ART REVIEWS..
Dragons, Nagas, and Creatures of the Deep
Washington’s Textile Museum kicks off the Chinese “Year of the Dragon” with a highly informative and entertaining show. The galleries feature 19 objects from the museum’s vast collection including rugs, ceremonial robes, pillar covers from sacred temples, aprons, and more. The objects on display range from the 5th century to the early 19th century and they represent both sacred and personal items, each designed to include either a fanciful dragon, or a lesser-known Naga snake deity. Lee Talbot, the curator of the Eastern Hemisphere collection explained the significance of both dragons and Naga images. In Eastern Countries the dragon is a friendly deity, responsible for rain water, and responsive to the prayers of the Emperor. In the West, the dragon is a threatening and dangerous mythological creature. As seen in the show, representations of dragons on the textiles vary depending on the culture. Some dragons are abstractions resembling the letter S, others covered with fish-like scales, some winding and others grotesque. Naga forms are snakelike, and generally were worshipped to ensure rain, and avoid floods and drought—especially important for survival in India, and throughout South-East Asia where the populations live within the rice cycle. The show is highly informative as well as enjoyable for all ages! Youngsters can look for the dragonheads and bodies, not always so obvious, as well as the Naga snakes. Adults will marvel at the workmanship of the talented professional artists laboring under the direction of an ancient emperor—responsible for the proper prayers which the dragon was expected to grant for the survival of many non-Western civilizations! Dragons, Nagas, and Creatures of the Deep will hang until Jan. 6, 2013. The Textile Museum is located at 2320 S. Street, NW. (Tues.-Sat. 10AM to 5PM. Sunday 1PM to 5PM). For information www.textilemuseum.org
Words as Art at Minimalist National Gallery Show  Mel Bochhner’s work, consisting of 43 objects and shown in the two Tower Galleries of the East Building of National Gallery of Art will hang until April 8th, 2012. Bochner, a central figure in the Minimalist Movement, is the first living artist to be exhibited in the Tower Gallery. Bochner’s work will be better understood by a reading of the complimentary brochure available at the exhibit. It is one of the gallery’s most unique exhibitions, in which the artist conceptualizes the look of words in order to challenge our understanding of language. Bochner uses the thesaurus as a source book (referencing Roget in the exhibition). Words are the subject of his art, representing them with his toolbox of colors, shapes, and sizes, and creative, repetitive arrangements. His “portrait” series, early works hanging in the first of two galleries, symbolically depict his close friends and colleagues and are words arranged in “squares, or “triangles,” or “circles,” appropriate designs for each subject. Bochner’s works, as explained by James Meyer, Ass’t. Curator, Modern and Contemporary Art, are “meditations on language,” whose meanings are always changing. The exhibition is located in the Tower Galleries, the East Building. For more information contact the gallery at www.nga.gov
HARRY CALLAHAN AT 100
Drawing from its outstanding photography collection, the National Gallery of Art (NGA) celebrates the centenary of the birth of photographer, teacher, Harry Callahan (1912-1999). Both Callahan, and his wife Eleanor, the subject of many of his aesthetic and experimental photographs were present at the Gallery in 1990 when his first exhibition opened, and his works joined he good company of other legendary photographers in the NGA collection, notably Stieglitz, Kertesz, and Penn. This show, which hangs until March 4, 2012, features an artist whose works are described as “ timeless and intuitive,” by Sarah Greenough, Senior Curator at the NGA. Callahan taught at two of the best art schools in the United States, The Chicago Institute of Design, and the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), creating RISD’s Photography Department. The show follows the long path of his creative career, from Callahan’s more formal compositions influenced by his early mentor Ansel Adams, to more experimental approaches during his mature years while teaching in Chicago and Providence. His interpretations of his subjects, whether double-exposures of his wife Eleanor, seascapes on Cape Cod, the architecture of Providence, or intimate nature studies as a simple twig in the snow created and printed with technical perfection…and, although he moved away from so-called ‘pictorial’ or more ethereal studies, his later works retained their artistic impact. Subjects of interest to Callahan include women experiencing everyday activities in downtown Chicago, lost in thought and unaware of the photographer. His low camera angle and high contrast printing added to the psychological impact. He evolved from an 8x10 view camera early in his career—a cumbersome camera that he used for snapshot like photos as well as formal studies, to smaller formats used for travel in his later period. Callahan approached photography with passion and honesty throughout his career, and at 100 years, his photographs remain fresh and ageless. For more information contact the National Gallery of Art at: www.nga. gov The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden is located at Independence Ave. at Seventh St. Hirshhorn.si.edu National Gallery Unleashes Three Centuries of Fine Art Three new exhibitions at Washington’s National Gallery of Art (NGA) feature masterpieces by Castiglione, The French Impressionists, and Picasso, well worth several stimulating and enjoyable hours. Jonathan Bober, the gallery’s new curator of old master prints, has put together a collection of etchings, drawings and prints on paper by the Baroque genius Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione (1610-1665). Castigliane was a prolific draftsman, and his prints are among the finest Baroque representations of animal life, nature, and biblical subjects. His works are animated, and theatrical, despite the extreme detail in his drawings. He was influenced by Rembrandt and other masters of Dutch art and he was a strong influenced on Fragonard. The show, “ The BaroqueGenius of Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione” will hang until July 8, 2012 in the NGA’s West Wing. In a nearby gallery, see “Picasso’s Drawings, 1890-1921:Reinventing Tradition.” This exhibition of 80 prints, many recently acquired and never shown, explore chronologically Picasso’s development from representative to abstract art. Picasso (1881-1973), as his drawings demonstrate, is very difficult to categorize, but the exhibition will clarify the inner workings of his genius. Picasso reworked his abstract drawings, adding and subtracting elements. In one gallery showing his cubist works, drawings are hung side by side enabling viewers to better understand Picasso’s conscious evolution toward a finished subject. (See: 5 drawings of the standing nude). The show may be seen in the gallery’s West Building until May 6, 2012. The newly renovated 19th Century French Galleries comprising 14 rooms is located on the main floor of the NGA’s East Building.The French Galleries contain one of the world’s strongest collections of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist art, and are now organized in historical and thematic groupings. This exciting installation includes celebrated works by Manet, Monet, Renoir, Cezanne, Latrec, Gauguin, and others. Works from the Chester Dale Collection feature prominently in this permanent installation. For more information contact the National Gallery of Art at: www.nga. gov The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden is located at Independence Ave. at Seventh St. Hirshhorn.si.edu
Samuel F.B. Morse, More Than Three Dots and a Dash
Well known as the inventor of the telegraph, and the creator of the international code of distress, Samuel F.B. Morse (1791-1872) was an accomplished painter. He was the first president of the National Academy of Design, and highly regarded as an accomplished artist by his contemporaries. Fortunately, and thanks to the sponsoring Terra Foundation, Washington’s National Gallery of Art will exhibit one of Morse’s best known and controversial works, Gallery of the Louvre, (1831-33) until July 12, 2012. The work is a fictional construction of copies of 40 works by master painters from the Louvre’s Grande Galerie. Many are easily identifiable, although the National Gallery provides an excellent brochure at no charge, which explains the background of the work and identifies the works copied by Morse. The frames in this work, with four exceptions, are identical, providing a successful fit to the work, although not copies of the original frames. Morse brought this monumental work for exhibition in the United States both to earn income (there was a charge for the show), and to educate the American public as to the value of fine art, and hopefully to encourage the public to build art museums (there were none in the United States in 1833). The public rejected the project and a discouraged Morse gave up painting, and turned to photography and, of course, experiments with the telegraph. The restoration of the work is an important part of the story, and was a complex project in itself, as Morse mixed varnish and various other glazes with his paints to speed the drying and obtain an old-master outcome. The story is on a National Gallery DVD, A New Look: Samuel F.B Morse’s Gallery of the Louvre. National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. For more information contact the gallery at www.nga.gov About Marshall | Photo Galleries | Executive Portraits Copyright © 2011 |
